


Back Into Winter

by Ely_Pines



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AU where Bucky lives with the Avengers, Bucky Barnes Angst, Bucky Barnes Has PTSD, Gen, Like the most angst possible, Other Winter Soldiers, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Weekly update, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, Winter Soldier's former student, bucky is scared
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-07-01 02:11:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 48,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15764475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ely_Pines/pseuds/Ely_Pines
Summary: In order to infiltrate a HYDRA facility located in Alaska, Bucky Barnes must assume the persona of the Winter Soldier once more... which won't go without some traumas coming back to the surface.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time working on a multiple-chapters story, I'm a bit scared! (But excited nonetheless)

 

The hologram of the facility was floating mid-air, about three inches above the white table. It was slowly revolving around itself so that everyone in the room could see its details. It was a simple building, though, buried to its half into the snow-covered ground, with a heavy door and guarded by a small, concrete tower.

“What is this?” asked Steve, arms crossed, his blue eyes staring at the blue lines of the hologram.

“A HYDRA facility” answered Tony. He had his hand put on the smooth surface of the table and sliding on it while he himself was quietly walking around the furniture. Sometimes he’d looked from below to have a better view. “Or so we think.” He shook his head. “Well, we’re pretty damn sure about it, but, you know.” He made a vague gesture with his hand and finally rested on the table with both of his arm and looked at the people facing him - and in particular, Steve.

“Where is it located?”

The two men turned to look at Clint who had just spoken. Hawkeye was sitting comfortably in his armchair with a coffee table in front of him, on which laid a chessboard. He had just made his move and was waiting for the Falcon to respond.

“In Alaska” said Natasha who was across the table, almost hidden by the blueish hologram.

Clint gave her a surprised look.

“Why on Earth would HYDRA install a facility in Alaska?” he asked completely clueless himself.

This time, the redhead spoke while looking at Tony.

“Yeah, that’s really strange, for sure. And why didn’t we notice this facility earlier?”

“This question, I can answer” said JARVIS. The AI’s voice was coming through an intercom installed in the ceiling. Everyone looked up by reflex, even though there was no one to see, of course. “This facility is old. We think it was built during the World War II by German spies then taken back by Soviet spies and used by them during the Cold War. Since the end of the last, it had shown no more activity. Until this monday.”

“A telegram was sent from there.” said Tony, more specifically. 

“And?” asked Captain America - but the philanthropist billionaire shook his head.

“Nothing that seemed important.” He added, impatiently (as if he was angry with whoever was in that building and had sent that telegram): “Just coordinates. Theirs.”

Everyone fell silent as they were trying to figure out what was that facility and more importantly, what was the whole point of its existence. The fact that it had awaken after so many years was indeed concerning, but was it really important for their current (and personal) search?

“Well” said Thor after a few seconds “it doesn’t appear for me that Loki’s sceptre would be in there.” They nodded as he had said out loud what they were all thinking. However, Steve raised his voice one more time.

“What about you?” He turned to look behind him, where the couch was. A solitary figure sat there. “What do you think, Buck?” asked Captain America to his old partner.

The man had been listening all along, though he had distanced himself from the others. Besides, while the room was well-lit with lights coming from pretty much everywhere, the blind had been half-closed and was thus projecting a shadow on the former assassin, making him look no more friendly. Tony though of this as he clenched his fist nervously. Obviously, he didn’t feel at ease in the other’s presence but he tried to dissimulate his feelings.

“Does this facility remind you of anything, Barnes?” he asked with his most neutral voice.

The man stared at them during a short instant then he fixed his eyes on the hologram. Another few seconds passed before he finally nodded slowly.

“Yeah. I know it.”

Tony opened his mouth but Steve was the quickest.

“What do you know about it?”

Bucky briefly closed his eyes before answering. Except for the movements of his face, he hadn’t moved a single muscle since the beginning of the conversation. They were all looking at him, now, even Sam Wilson who had had to abandon the chess game and turn his chair around to have a proper view on him.

“I remember they had… a room.” His eyes didn’t met theirs but it was clear it was because he was trying to reach for his memories that were like his mind - scattered, hard to fix. He frowned. “They had me put in there for…” he let out a quick, baffled smile “...training? I feel like I was the trainer, though. It’s weird.” His eyes went to meet Steve’s as if he was requesting confirmation, but the Captain looked away. Bucky’s past wasn’t something he was avid to talk about.

Nobody either seemed to notice that Natasha had tensed up at the listening of his words.

“Any idea why they would get back in business today?” asked Clint. Bucky shook his head. Tony and Steve could hear a small “fuck” coming out of the archer, but decided not to care about. Actually, Tony was more concerned about the rest of the facility.

“D’you remember anything else?” he asked while pointing at the hologram. “Anything else at all? Anything could be useful, you know, if we want to take that thing down.”

Bucky nodded.

“Yeah, I remember something else.” He rose his head and fixed his eyes on Tony alone for the first time. “They had a cell. For me.”

When they heard these words, everyone looked away as they felt uncomfortable - especially Tony. Steve quickly glanced at him but the rich man avoided looking at him - as well at everyone else. Finally, it was up to Steve to speak up again.

“Do you think there will be many soldiers?” he asked in a soft voice.

Bucky shook his head for the second time.

“I- I don’t know. I really don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay, Buck.”

They looked at each other and Steve tried to smile at him in order to comfort him. Bucky smiled in returned, feeling a bit lighter.

“Anyway” said Natasha - and everyone focused their attention on her. “I don’t think we should savagely crash into there. They seemed like old school: they’ll kill themselves and destroy all the records before we can get a single piece of information.”

“Then what do you propose?” asked Thor with his mighty voice.

Natasha grinned.

“I don’t know. That’s the problem.”

They were starting to think about a decent way to enter the facility (a way that wouldn’t include them going full force on their enemies) when Tony spoke again, eyes fixed on Bucky.

“I think I’ve got a plan.”

 

***

 

The room felt silent while they were listening to Iron Man. But even before he could get to the end of his plan, Steve was shaking his head out of disapproval.

“We’re not doing that” he said.

“Why not?” asked Tony.

He pointed at Natasha.

“Nat’s probably right: these guys won’t let us come to them, even if we put on cloth pads and hand them jelly beans. We don’t know what they’re up too, we don’t know if they’re dangerous. Heck, we’re not even sure they’re HYDRA! So I say that our best chance is to infiltrate them.”

Steve had crossed his arms on his chest and leaned on the table.

“Maybe it is” he conceded “but that doesn’t mean it would work.”

Tony seemed about to say something but he ultimately gave up and turned to Natasha, praying her in silence. The redhead sighed.

“No actually, Tony’s right, Steve.” she said. “It may totally work.”

“But what if it doesn’t?”

“Then we’ll come to his help.”

“And what if we’re too slow?”

This time, Thor was the one to decide to step in.

“Do not fear that, Captain. We’ll be faster than the running of the wolf. Plus, I trust our friend to be able to handle himself until we arrive.”

Steve decided to ignore him. He hadn’t taken his eyes from Tony.

“Let’s say it works - and I’m not saying it will - do you really think they’ll give him all the informations we want? Like that?”

Tony felt his impatience growing up.

“Cap, for God’s sake, why can’t you just accept-”

“Why does it have to be Bucky!”

Everyone suddenly hold their breath in fear and surprise as the sound of his voice and his fist continued to echo in the room. Steve looked down, realising now that he just had punched the table with his fist, almost breaking it in half.

“So that’s what it was all about” muttered Tony.

Steve glanced for a second at Bucky still sitting motionless - and emotionless - on the couch. Then he met again with Tony’s eyes.

“Tony, please, you can’t ask him to do that.”

“Steve” replied the billionaire “I get you, but I’m not asking him to… Geez! He just needs to infiltrate a HYDRA base! It’s not like we’re sending him back to Russia or the heck knows where else!”

Steve was about to reply when Clint rose his smirky voice.

“Hey guys, what about we let __him__  decide?” He then proceeded to speak directly to Bucky. “Whaddya think buddy? You’re in?”

They all waited for his answer. Bucky first looked at Clint, then at Tony.

“If I’m getting this correctly” he started “you want me to become the Winter Soldier again so I can infiltrate that facility?”

“To impersonate the Winter Soldier, yeah.” said Tony like it was something completely different.

Bucky felt silent, focusing his attention to his hands. His right hand would come back and forth on the surface of his metal hand, following its fake lines. After a few seconds, he spoke again, with his calm, profound voice.

“Well, I don’t want to.”

Having said that, he rose to his feet and exited the room.

 

***

 

Steve found him in his personal room, sitting on his bed, looking again at his hands. For a moment, the blonde hesitate to enter. Then he crossed the doorstep and came sitting right next to his friend. Bucky didn’t even look at him.

“You’ve come to convince me?” he asked him with a hoarse voice.

Steve let out a irritated sigh.

“No Buck, of course not.” He paused before continuing: “I came to check if you were okay.”

The ex-assassin shrugged his shoulders.

“So? What’s your bet?” he said in an almost aggressive tone.

Steve let out a second then he gently put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. Bucky flinched. Steve could feel that the man was on the verge of breaking down in tears although he was holding tight - maybe because of his pride or maybe because he had learnt during a long time to never let anyone see what he was feeling. But his voice was definitively trembling.

“You don’t understand Steve…”

“Buck…”

“You don’t. I don’t- I don’t want to put that on again. You don’t know what it feels like, Steve, but it feels horrible. It’s like being in a cage, it’s like being able to walk and move and go wherever you want but you’re still in cage, you’re still trapped, and you know you don’t even possess you own life-”

He was talking at a high speed, his words flowing out of his mouth, sometimes too fast to be well-pronounced - but Steve would never stop him.

“Buck…”

Too many years of trauma were coming back to the surface. He was staring at his bare hands but he didn’t see them bare at all: he saw them holding a knife or a gun.

“I didn’t like that suit, Steve, I didn’t like it at all! I didn’t even put it on myself! They wouldn’t let me. They’d have me naked in front of everyone and then dress me up and they’d put my mask on and I couldn’t breathe through that dawn thing! And I’m sure they knew it! They knew it but they through it would help me to focus and not get distracted. Breath and kill. The more delay I put on my mission, the more I suffocate. I don’t want to have to breathe through that fucking mask ever again, Steve, I don’t want to! Please, I-”

“Buck, hey! Bucky!”

Steve increased his pressure on Bucky’s shoulder to force him to look at him. Then he spoke very slowly, to make sure his friend knew he meant it all.

“Bucky, I know. Okay? I understand. I know what you’re feeling.”

He waited for a second. He felt his heart being crushed when he noticed a single tear on Bucky’s cheek. He restrained himself from wiping it away with one of his fingers. He didn’t want his friend to feel so vulnerable another man had to wipe away his tears.

“Bucky, I’m not asking you to do it. I would never force you into something like this. We’ll find another way, don’t worry, we’ll-”

He stopped when he saw Bucky looking down. His left hand - his metal hand - was clutching to the sheet lying on his bed. He let out a snob and a few more tears he didn’t even care to remove from his face. He tried to smile sadly - and failed - and when he looked up again at Steve, the soldier had the most heartbreaking sight.

“I’m scared Steve” cried Bucky.

Steve couldn’t bear it anymore and pulled his friend onto the longer, stronger hug.

“I’m scared” repeated Bucky, now sobbing shamelessly on his shoulder. “I’m scared that if I put it on again, I’ll- I’ll lose control and I don’t want to hurt you or anyone else and- and I don’t want to lose myself again! I don’t want to go through all this all over again!”

Steve broke from the hug to look firmly into the brunette’s eyes.

“Listen to me, Buck. I won’t let that happen. You hear me? I won’t let that happen. Never.”

Bucky snorted and tried to smile.

“You promise?” he asked.

His friend gave him his brightest smile an Bucky felt something warm inside.

“I promise.”

The brunette nodded repeatedly. Suddenly, he felt a lot more lighter than before. He knew it was all thanks to his childhood friend. He remembered that before the war, being in Steve’s presence would make him feel more confident. Now, it was amongst the few things on Earth that were capable of making him feel peaceful.

“Thank you, Steve.”

He looked at the blonde and smiled.

“I’ll do it. I’m ready.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed it! Please, leave me a comment to let me know what you think was good/bad about my story!


	2. Time to suit up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky tries to resume training in his Winter Soldier suit and it doesn't end well at all.

Bucky said he was ready. He may have lied, he though to himself, while standing in front of his mirror, half naked. He didn’t pay attention to his many scars covering the top of his body, some small and almost invisible, others very obvious or not yet fully healed. His eyes lingered upon his dark brown hair. He still wore it long without really knowing why. However he had get used to tie it into a man bun. He kind of thought it suited him. Plus, it was useful: it didn’t get in his eyes. But that wasn’t the Winter Soldier’s haircut. With a sigh, the brunette untied his hair. He felt like losing a bit of his self again - a feeling that would do nothing but grow stronger.

Bucky looked down at his Winter Soldier suit lying on the ground, near his feet. Ready to be put on. Except that the more he looked at it, the less he wanted to even touch it.

The ex-assassin tried to glance secretly at Captain America who sat quietly on his bed, waiting - if he ever needed help. Bucky had told Steve that HYDRA not allowing him to dress himself up was amongst the things that made him sick. That’s why he wanted to do it on his own. But the suit felt too heavy.

“Bucky, you don’t have to” Steve said softly.

“We’ve already been though this.”

He replied with irritation but the fact was that he knew his old friend wasn’t trying to talk him out of this mission but rather had failed to think of anything else to say so to distract him from his anxiety.

Then he heard the man chuckled.

“Look at that” whispered the blonde “the most deadly assassin on Earth... the Underwear Soldier!”

The joke made Bucky to crack up into a quick laugh. He laid his metal arm upon his hip but made sure one of his fingers went under said underwear. Then with a smutty smile, he warned his friend:

“Don’t try me Rogers. You wouldn’t like the comparison.”

His hand kept going down as if he was about to take off his boxer too but he actually bent over to reach for his suit. He had decided to proceed slowly. First, the trousers. It was big - dark - and real tight. It had many clips to prevent it from falling down in the middle of a fight and even more to which he could hang up knives or whatever small weapons he would have fancied using. When he tied his boots, he was surprised by how heavy these two also were. Like, had HYDRA just wanted to slow him down? Because it sure felt like it!

“Yeah, like it was the only purpose of this shit” muttered Bucky for himself.

“Sorry, did you say something?” asked Steve “you okay, buddy?”

The brunette tried to smile.

“Yeah, I’m fine, don’t worry. I was just thinkin’ that I’m about to steal the show from ya” he said while pointing to his torso still naked. Steve smiled back. That simple smile cheered him up instantly and he looked back to his suit, a bit more determined. He first put on a white shirt to protect him from the friction then he started to attach his jacket. Like his pants, it was big, dark and tight. Truth was, he wondered if his jacket wasn’t even tighter than his pants. It probably was. His legs didn’t need to be as restricted as his heart.

Finally, he put on his mask and looked up at his reflection in the mirror. He did not recognize himself. Or rather, he recognized the Winter Soldier, the face that hunted some of his nights. He looked at his eyes too and couldn’t find any niceness in them: they were just cold, merciless - assassin’s eyes. Bucky couldn’t see himself, he could only see the Soldier. His chest also felt oppressed and air wasn’t going through the mask. He started to panic.

“Bucky!”

With a brutal gesture, he pulled off his mask and threw it away. But then he pushed back Steve who had jumped out of the bed and rushed towards him.

“I told you I’m _fine_!” he shouted.

The blonde took a few steps back, his face saddened as he spoke:

“I’m sorry Buck. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

He turned away and started to walk towards the door. When he was about to leave the room, Bucky opened his mouth but no words came out. He shrugged his shoulders, feeling somewhat annoyed. No one could understand him anyway, he thought. He looked again at the mirror. Even with the mask off, the eyes were still the Winter Soldier’s. Maybe if he was smiling? No, that only made it worse. The man sighed while looking at his door left wide opened.

Later on that day, he went to Steve’s room to apology. Of course, the blonde immediately hugged him and forgave him. He knew what Bucky was going through and his only wish was to help him in every way he could.

And as a matter of fact, there was one in particular.

“I need you to help me with my training” asked the ex-assassin.

 

***

 

What Bucky meant by training was his Winter Soldier’s training. Since he had broke free of HYDRA’s clutches, he had stop exercising because he didn’t want to fight anymore. And the actual few fights he got himself into (after he’d tried everything not to get involved though), he made sure he never used what HYDRA taught him. But as he was supposed to impersonate the Winter Soldier once more, he now had to make sure his movements were indeed the ones of the fearsome Soldat. Besides, he had to get used to his suit again.

On the first day, he was all geared up while Steve only brought his shield. With his civilian clothes, it felt like they were on that bridge again - a memory Bucky wasn’t particularly fond (nor proud) of.

“Don’t worry, Buck. I’m here” said Steve to comfort him.

Bucky looked down for one second at his right hand holding one of his knives. He was swirling it around without even thinking about it. That was the proof his old reflexes were still here and he just needed to wake them up.

“So let’s do this.”

He engaged in combat with Steve. He still felt hot and suffocating under his mask but it quickly stopped being his priority number one. Steve was fast, punched hard. But Bucky had decades of hand-to-hand combat. In a way, he wasn’t as fast as the Captain, but his movements were deadly precise: everything was calculated. His metal arm rained down on Steve’s head and when the blonde blocked it with his shield, he simply let his knife slide down on it and then catch it back with his other hand before striking horizontally. His friend only dodged it by lowering his head and thus losing sight of him for a mere second. While taking advantage of it to move away the shield and kick him with his knee, Bucky had suddenly memories flashing before his eyes.

 

_First, the dark chamber._

 

He was only starting to recover from his operation. Surrounded by scientists in pure white coats or heavy geared soldiers, he sat in his dark cell, alone and disoriented. The fall had left him with few memories from his past life. One face was all clear and clean in his head, though - and it was Zola’s. He could remember the German scientist watching as metal was soldering to his shoulder. He still looked at this metallic and cold arm with fear and incomprehension. One day, however, a soldier in full armour entered his cell and then proceeded to drag him into a vast and empty room, far below the surface. Bucky looked up, to the second floor, and found Zola and his accomplices standing behind a glass, watching as always.

The soldier who had dragged him here took position in front of him.

“Fight” they said.

He didn’t understand what was happening. But before he could make any move the soldier hit him really hard. He fell on the ground, stunned. While he was trying to come to his senses again, the German man picked him up and then punched him in the stomach. As he fell for the second time, his opponent kicked him in the face with his heavy boots. Bucky felt blood in his mouth.

When they took him back to his cell, he was covered with bruises and blood and every single one of his cells was hurting and begging for mercy. He barely noticed Zola coming into the room and speaking about his body not being prepared enough. He didn’t care more when they gave him a injection of their serum or whatever. He just wanted to sleep.

The next day, the soldier returned. And took him to the same room.

“Fight” they said again.

He tried but ended up beaten for the second time. Zola seemed disappointed, but Bucky thought he had done better than the first time.

The third day, the soldier came again and beat him up in the same big room. The fourth day was no different and neither was the fifth day.

“Fight” they said.

On every morning, the brunette would prepare himself. There was nothing he could do to prevent the combat from happening, thus he concentrated on winning it - or at least, not losing it too bad. He fought back, using every technique he knew of - he somehow remembered that he was once in the army but he couldn’t say for which country he had fought or even in which war - before trying to copy his opponent’s attacks. From not understanding what was happening to him, he came to the burning rage of wanting revenge and when he understood that this rage wasn’t leading him anywhere either, to the cold-blooded strategy in which feelings were no longer of use.

“Fight” they said.

And he fought. Without even thinking about it, without even asking why. He thought about his upcoming fight when he woke up, he thought about the next one when he had finished it. He still didn’t know who or where he was because he had forgotten why it would have mattered.

“Fight” they said.

Now, the soldier was struggling each time more to even touch him. Now, he was the soldier. They would sent three, four, sometimes six guys against him but he would take them down, one by one, methodically. He didn’t know how long he had been at this and thus hadn’t notice the fast growth of his muscles - thanks to Zola’s serum. His metal arm was no longer a stranger to his body, it was now his most efficient and reliable weapon. Some days, one of his opponent would succeed in damaging it and he would have to go through another operation. But he didn’t screamed in pain anymore. He didn’t even feel the burn that went up the arm and expanded through his whole body anymore. He was kind of detached from it or rather, he had separated it from his mind: the latter was to calculate while the former was to strike. Together they formed a single - and deadly - weapon.

“Fight” they said.

He fought and he learnt that it was his only purpose in life - for ever.

 

The soldier was confused. He had never fought a man with a shield before. No, actually, he was sure that he had for his mind had already a prepared strategy to which his body responded the exact way it had to. He knew that this fight wasn’t for real, that it was only for training, that he wasn’t supposed to kill. But he forgot.

Needless to say, his target was a good opponent. He had to use every one of his skills to keep matching him. The punch he blocked with his metal arm damaged it. He flinched for a second because he was taken aback by this man’s strength. When his attention went back to the man, he could see that he seemed... embarrassed? Because he had succeeded to hurt him? No, it had to be because he was ashamed of him, the Soldier, who showed that he was weaker than expected. So he felt ashamed of himself and thus his mind tried harder to calculate his way to success - his mission’s success.

Under his mask, he had started to breath with difficulty. His suit was oppressing his chest and his lungs couldn’t expand as much as it was necessary for them to. The Soldier wasn’t panicking, of course, but he was definitively not okay with that fight. His dominant feeling was frustration. He felt trapped. This fight was lasting for too long. He was outside in the world for too long. He felt it judging him, wanting him dead, as much as he felt his handlers wanting him back right now. His hate grew stronger. Towards this man, towards the world, towards his handlers, towards his oppressed body and mind that weren’t working as well as they were supposed to, as he wanted them to. Needed them to. He hated everything that was making this fight that long. Because the truth was, the Winter Soldier didn’t like being outside. He didn’t like being at all. He fought when he was told to, but he didn’t like it when his missions would take too much time. For several years now, he had learnt that the more time he spent outside, the more he would end up feeling bad. He didn’t even know why, but he knew that faces, names, events would come to his mind - and that it would destroy it. He didn’t like it when this sort of things happened because it hurt him on the moment and it hurt him later, when his handlers would realize that this had happened and thus had to clear his mind again - the hard way.

This fight needed to end for his own good. He tried to deceive the man by letting himself fall to the ground. Then, he threw his boot in the other’s shin which made him lose his balance. The Winter Soldier grunted in pain when he sent away the shield by using his flesh arm. But the plan had succeeded for the man had fallen over him. Promptly, he had his legs blocked his’ and both of his hands closed on his neck. That was it: the end of the fight. But despite being focused on choking the man to death, he heard something. A voice.

“Buck!”

He blinked. His attention was distracted from the neck and he looked up at the man, right in his eyes, eyes of the purest blue he had ever seen. He got confused.

“Bucky, please!”

And then the voice broke into his mind and Bucky realized what was happening: he was trying to strangulate Steve. He immediately stopped and got himself away from his friend. He took off his mask, gasping for air and completely lost.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, oh Steve, I’m sorry, I swear I didn’t mean to, I’m so sorry, I-”

Steve quickly got back to his feet and raised his hand to calm him down.

“It’s okay Buck. You hear me? It’s okay. Don’t worry.”

But Bucky shook his head. He looked down at his hands and felt more terrified as he had ever been. Not knowing what to do, he decided to flee. He ran to his room, shut the door, and climbed on his bed where he just curled up, shaking with fear. After a few seconds however, he realized he had still his suit on and he almost screamed while trying to rip it off. But because his whole being was a mess, he couldn’t achieve it and he just ended up crying.

Steve entered his room at this time, without a word. He was holding his friend’s mask in his hand. The interior was sweaty as hell. Surely, this wasn’t something that someone would want to wear for fun. And in fact, the Winter Soldier didn’t wear it for fun at all. For their entire fight, Bucky had been screaming for help and because of that mask, he wasn’t able to hear him.

“Here” he said, a bit embarrassed “you dropped this, buddy.”

The blonde put down the mask on the bed, between the two of them. He waited a few more seconds but Bucky wasn’t moving nor speaking. Steve sighed.

“Please, Buck, listen, it wasn’t your fault. It was, you know... reflexes.”

The living symbol of America was searching for nice things to say, to cheer him up.

“Bucky, what you’ve got is called PTSD. It’s pretty common among former soldiers. You don’t have to feel guilty about it. You know what?” Steve chuckled gently when he remembered one of his friend. “You should totally go talk to Sam.”

Bucky stopped crying and although he still didn’t move, Steve knew that he’d gotten his attention. So, he continued his story, more cheerfully.

“Yeah, it’s totally Sam’s job, you know? Helping ancient soldiers to deal with their PTSD and all. I went to see him one day... No, actually, he asked me to come because there was that girl he wanted to impress. Can you believe that guy seriously?”

Steve turned his head towards the ex-assasin. The brunette had chuckled too. He raised up his head to meet his friend’s eyes. Steve smiled at him and gently put his hand on his shoulder. But Bucky immediately looked away, ashamed.

“Thanks Steve” he said with a hoarse voice “but it’s not PTSD. It’s me. I’ve lost control. To think it just took me to get into that fucking suit and I became the Winter Soldier again...”

“No” replied the Captain “you didn’t. The Winter Soldier was HYDRA’s puppet and HYDRA doesn’t control you anymore. It wasn’t you, Buck. The Winter Soldier was never you! Stop saying things like this, please.”

The man shrugged. Steve never understood that the Winter Soldier was and would always be a part of him. He may have been under HYDRA’s control at that time, but it was him nonetheless.

“Yeah, maybe” he said to end this conversation.

Steve offered him a bigger smile - which warmed him up a little.

“Listen, buddy. You got this. I’m positive that all you really need is time so-”

“So bad news, then” said a third voice.

They both turned towards the entrance of the room where Natasha had suddenly appeared (but how long had she really been there, standing and listening?).

“What do you mean?” asked Steve.

The redhead looked directly at Bucky.

“The facility. They just started to move. A lot. Barnes, you need to go undercover _now_.”


	3. Inside the belly of the beast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky finally starts his mission undercover. Soon, things get more complicated than expected. Is it possible HYDRA was waiting for him?

The Quinjet had almost reached its destination. It started its descent but stopped a few feet above the frozen ground, between the pine trees green and square.

“I’m opening the airlock!” Stark shouted from the pilot seat.

The heavy door opened slowly, revealing the cold and blank soil of Alaska. Bucky looked down, feeling anxious. He was clenching his fist to the point he nearly hurt himself. His breath, thought already coming through the thick fabric of the mask, was forming ethereal clouds in the air due to the low temperature.

Steve put a gently hand on his shoulder.

“You can do it, Buck” he said “I trust you.”

The ex-assassin smiled poorly. If he could have had half the confidence Steve entrusted him with, he would not have hesitated for one second. But he had witnessed what’d happened of him if he ever got into a fight with that suit on. Hence, his mission to not get into a fight at all. Easy peasy. He sighted and untied his hair - unconsciously, he had made his man bun once more during the travel. He saw Steve holding out his hand to him so he gave him the elastic. Cap wrapped it around his wrist.

“If you want it back” he said jokingly “you have to come back alive. Deal?”

Bucky laughed.

“All right, punk” he answered.

Then they heard the voice of Tony again.

“Now’s the time, Barnes!”

Bucky looked at Steve one last time and then got on his motorbike. He turned it on quickly and jumped off the Quinjet. The two wheels landed almost simultaneously on the ground. He stopped the bike and thus watched the aircraft leaving him alone. The plan was for them to go hiding somewhere farther from the facility and there wait for his signal. Hopefully, it would not be the distress signal. Anyway, he should get moving - he thought to himself. He had a mission to accomplish.

 

Riding his motorbike, Bucky travelled back for a few miles in order to make his trail less easy to decrypt. Then he turned back and headed for the facility. He came there faster than he expected and stopped the engine brutally, in front of the single man in duty at the entrance door. The facility was maybe two or three meters high (because the rest was underground) and its walls painted white made it blend in even more with its snowy environment.

When the guard saw him, he immediately aimed his gun at him. But Bucky couldn’t seem to care less. He got off his bike and started to walk towards the man. His pace was calm but something else emanated from it. Something very scary. The poor guy started to shudder and couldn’t fire. Bucky stopped one feet away from him.

“Let me in.”

His voice sounded deeper and more frightening with the mask. As if it wasn’t his voice at all. But somehow that didn’t bug him; actually, he felt peaceful - to his own surprise. He simply _knew_  how to act towards HYDRA’s henchmen. He only had to let his body do the job, in fact. No need to think. Just act.

The guard was scared but not stupid. With the same moment he opened the front door of the facility and also gave the alarm. Bucky saw it but didn’t react. He waited until the door was wide open and looked inside at the others soldiers taking position. He couldn’t help but smile when he noticed their whispers and their faces going pale as soon as they recognized him. The Winter Soldier had always been feared. By HYDRA’s enemy - and HYDRA itself.

“I’m here” he said, as if he was answering some unspoken question. “Who’s in charge here? Where is he?”

The men had their weapons ready but no one seemed willing to open fire. Actually, they rather sounded like they were waiting for new orders. Only then did Bucky realise he had spoken in Russian this time - and not English. So maybe they didn’t understand him?

Finally, another man came in - an officer. He looked at Barnes.

“Soldat.” he said, using the Russian term, and saluted him with a quick movement of his head.

That same movement also invited the ex-assassin to come with him. Without a word, Bucky started following him, passing in front of all the others soldiers who nearly took a step back. This leaded him feeling proud. But proud of what? Bucky, amused, tried to understand where this feeling came from - until he realized. This feeling was coming from the Winter Soldier. The Winter Soldier was proud of the fear he inspired to anyone looking at him. Bucky closed briefly his eyes.

“Don’t think about him, don’t think about him...” he adjured himself.

Luckily, nobody noticed his distress. He was closely following the officer and behind him went some of the others soldiers - among them was the guard he had first spoken to. They went down a few stairs and arrived in a large room with concrete walls and a big table in the middle. There stood a man, bended over the maps and some others documents he was studying. He looked up when they came in.

Baron Von Schuttgart was a short kind of guy with a belly twice the side of his head. His hair was brown but few and he had big glasses put on a sweaty nose. More surprisingly, he had freckles all around said nose. His mouth was large and when he spoke, he used to pat it with his fingers.

“Winter Soldier” he said in a sluggish voice, pronouncing the last syllables even more slowly while rolling his r’s so horribly Bucky had a sudden need of punching him in his fatty, sweaty face.

“I’m here” the ex-assassin repeated.

“Yes, I see and I welcome you!”

He had switched to English, thought his accent proved it wasn’t his native tongue. So why would he bother speaking English while it was well-known the Winter Soldier could speak at least a dozen languages? Actually, what was it with the Russian at the beginning? This was his doing of course - while trying to imitate the Winter Soldier, he had naturally switched to his most used language - but wasn’t this supposed to be a HYDRA facility? And yet the officer had saluted him back in Russian. Bucky tried to remember the briefing - it wasn’t easy because of what had happened that day, at the end of it, that had made him want to forget all about it. However he remembered JARVIS telling them that the facility which was indeed under Germany’s control during the WWII, had since then be recuperated by Soviet spies. So, back to the beginning: why would HYDRA be involved at all?

Or where were all the Soviet spies gone to?

“Why are you here?” he asked Von Schuttgart.

During one second, Bucky believed he had screwed it up - the Winter Soldier would only be authorized to ask questions about his mission, never to doubt his handlers - but the tiny man suddenly looked confused.

“Why, I-- We’re here to execute the orders!”

Bucky stared down at him - and the other man started to feel uncomfortable. While his whole appearance made him look frightening, his mind, however, was having a hard time keeping it together. But at least, he had learnt two things. First, Von Schuttgart believed he, the Winter Soldier, had been sent by “them” to watch over him - them being the same “persons” as always, those “they” who used to send him on a mission, who used to abuse and brainwash him, those “they” whose faces would change over the decades but still remain the same anonymous “they” that only mattered to him because they owned him.

Second, he had to be really careful about how he’d put his next sentence. In no way he could simply ask about these orders, for the man in front of him would immediately know something was wrong about him. Maybe he could ask about his own orders instead? But that would mean letting the man take power over him and never would Bucky let anyone have power over him ever again. He knew he was sweating a lot but he hoped no one saw that - they could have believed it was because of the suit if he hadn’t been in Alaska right now. That being put aside, he really needed to say something if he didn’t want to blow up his cover.

“Just checkin’. I didn’t expect this place to be active again.”

Yeah, that worked. Being curious - but not really and not that much - about a place he had been to a few times in the past could be indeed a Winter Soldier’s reaction.

Meanwhile, as they were talking, he’d turned around to get a look at the entire room. His eyes went quickly over the maps - there were maps of Europe and the Atlantic Ocean with what he assumed were the positions of American ships - and rather focused on the men themselves. They were all geared up, with leather armour and long guns but he couldn’t tell which country they were from.

“Yes of course” Von Schuttgart said in a softer voice “I was the first one surprised, believe me. Oh, I know! Maybe I could give you a tour?”

Bucky looked back at him and didn’t answer. Which, for the Winter Soldier, meant yes. Or at least, not no - like in a disobeying orders way. He remembered they wouldn’t leave him a single choice ever so they would constantly ask rhetorical questions and he would just stood, waiting for them to finish laughing at their own cruel little joke and start moving again so he can too - and forget about it all. Baron Von Schuttgart couldn’t be unaware of that. Maybe on that instant, he had indeed forgotten - for he sounded sincere - but he didn’t seem surprised all the same by the lack of answer afterwards and it didn’t take long for him to start trotting towards the back door without even checking if the Winter Soldier was behind him - which he was obviously.

They went through corridors and rooms and even down some more stairs. Baron Von Schuttgart chatted all the way long and Bucky fathomed that the man he was following was no danger for the Avengers. He was only another HYDRA henchmen. The difference between him and the guard was that he was better-looking in his uniform - and more ambitious. It was actually funny how the ambition was almost among the standards you needed to get promoted within HYDRA; the more you were ambitious, the higher you could go. On the other hand, it was inversely proportionate to your chances of survival: the higher you climbed HYDRA’s chain of command, the more chances you had to get assassinated by someone else. Which meant that the Baron wasn’t that ambitious, actually: his ambition was just enough to get him promoted and have men to take orders from him but not enough to get in the way of someone else. Also judging by his corpulence, he had probably been in charge of this facility for the one or two last decades. _Which meant_  he was after the wrong guy. Bucky could feel the communicator in his hear and wondered whether he should use it to call the rest of the team of not. The risk was that Von Schuttgart would kill himself before answering their questions. Why suddenly going back into business? And why sending their coordinates - and nothing else? The ex-assassin decided he was getting these informations by himself. He only needed more time - and he had plenty of it for the plan was for all the Avengers to wait for his signal, no matter what’d happen or how long it’d take.

“And this will conclude our tour, don’t you think?”

They had entered another large room but Bucky froze instantly. Instead of a table, in the middle of the room stood... his chair. On another corner he also spotted the cryo cell. What the fuck? Why his chair, why the chair he had been tied to so many times for so many hours of suffering? Why? And what was his cryo cell supposed to mean as well? Fuck. Something was wrong, terribly wrong and he started to breath heavily and panic - even with his mask on, it was quite obvious.

 _Shit, shit, shit _.__  

He didn’t see how it could get worse-

“Oh my, look who’s here.”

From the shadows of the room’s corners, a man had moved toward them. He was tall, his hair was brown and long and his eyes as sharp and icy as steel. He stood straight with his arms crossed behind his back. Just by looking at him Bucky knew right away who he was supposed to be. This guy had the ambition Schuttgart would never have. This guy was the reason that facility got back in the game. This guy... was the danger.

When he saw him, Baron Von Schuttgart let out a little shriek (what was that for? Excitement? Really?) and then faced again the enhanced soldier and smiled at him - his smile was the worst part of his hideous face: so sugary it could never be honest. Not to mention it was also a perfect coward’s smile.

“As you can see, we’re very happy you cared to join us, Winter Soldier. _I_  never doubted it, though. They said they lost you in DC. Makes me laugh every time. You just needed some coordinates to show you the way home, didn’t you?”

Bucky looked back at him, his mind completely blank - as well as his face, pale and bloodless. Then he slowly understood the whole thing. He had never actually seen the telegram or the coordinates written on it but he knew in his guts that they weren’t just coordinates and that this facility wasn’t just another HYDRA bunker. It was his extraction point. The coordinates were a trigger for his Winter Soldier programming. As soon as he would have read them, he would have felt the irrepressible need to come here (it also explained why that officer had responded to him speaking Russian; the facility had nothing to do with the Soviet spies anymore but they were expecting him - and they knew his story). As it went, he didn’t get to read the telegram but the trap worked nevertheless.  

And the worst part was: he had put himself back in his suit of his own free will.

Bucky had a mixed feeling of wanting to throw up and calling for help. He didn’t hesitate much longer, though: he turned back and ran towards the door. He was now in total panic and didn’t pay attention to his environment anymore. He took his knife out and got ready to fight his way out of here. He simply didn’t get the chance.

“Sputnik!”

The shout came from the tall man.

Bucky didn’t know what happened - he didn’t even understand the word. His body brutally - and immediately - let him down. His legs suddenly felt like they weighed several tons and he fell straight to the ground. His knife got lost and when he tried to reach it, his arm wouldn’t even move. He knew it was time to give that distress call but he also realized he would never be able to make it. His head already felt heavy and blurry. He could only heard Baron Von Schuttgart’s voice-

“How loyal are you, Sergeant Barnes! This makes me so happy! Allow me to say it just one more time: welcome back, Soldier.”

-Then he passed out.


	4. You belong to us, Soldier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky is held prisonner inside the Hydra base. But he is offered a way out: he simply needs to win a fight. The shadow of the Winter Soldier has never felt so close...

The room smelt smoke. It tickled Bucky who didn’t noticed it when he had come in it. He slowly opened his eyes. He immediately faced Baron Von Schuttgart and the other Hydra officer - the one with cold eyes. He blinked a few times - the light, albeit dim, hurt his eyes.

“How do you feel, soldier?” asked Schuttgart with his sickly sweet voice.

“I-”

He frowned. What had just happened actually? He remembered entering the room and seeing his chair and- _His chair._ He glanced down at his hands ties to it. Almost screamed out of terror. His legs were also fastened to the chair - he noticed it when he brutally tried to break free (in vain obviously). Schuttgart shook his head with disapproval and tapped his fingers on his lips when he spoke.

“Now, now, this is not how you’re supposed to act in front of your handlers, soldier.”

But Simm - Schuttgart’s superior officer as Bucky had figured out - let out a annoyed sigh and pushed him away so he can see Bucky better. Bucky looked up. He was breathing heavily but more easily as he realized they had taken off his muzzle. He didn’t quite understand why - maybe because they were also tired of the muffled sound that was supposed to be his voice.

“Mission report” ordered the man.

Bucky frowned again. Somewhere in the back of his head, he could feel the urge to speak, to do his report, efficient and concise. His heart sank. He had by now figured out that the “sputnik” word was meant to shut him down - the Winter Soldier. But Bucky had been convinced he’d gotten rid of all his programming.

Apparently, he was wrong.

After the fall of the helicarriers, Bucky went on the loose. Not for a long time, though. He seemed that he couldn’t get himself to leave town. He learnt about the Smithsonian exhibition and so he went there, in civilian clothes. He read all those texts about Steve... and about him. Memories of Steve had started to come back to him but the smiling face of Sergeant Barnes was still hard to associate to his. He slept hidden on a park and the next day, he went back to the museum. That’s how they got their hands on him. They had found his suit in the trash can behind the monument and they had come back for further investigation. Turned out they didn’t need it.

Bucky was taken to the hospital - the same one that had the custody of Steve too - and they told him there he had a concussion. Later, Fury interrogated him, right in his hospital bedroom. Bucky told him everything he could remember of - which was very little at that time. Fury didn’t come back but when Bucky tried to leave the hospital (he was afraid that what remained of both SHIELD and Hydra would try to get him back - and erase his mind again) he discovered that the eye-patched man had assigned soldiers to guard his room. He was a prisoner.

Bucky scowled for the entire day. He had no idea of who he was, what had happened in his life and last but not least, he was freaking out about the idea that his former handlers would eventually find him. The only thing he knew for sure about himself was that he was free and intended to stay that way. But there was no one around he could trust or even knew enough that could have guided him. Until Natasha came.

She immediately started to talk to him in Russian and he cheerfully responded to it. Back then, Russian felt like home. Around her, he relaxed a bit. They talked for hours during a couple of days and the next thing he knew he was free to leave the hospital. He stayed, though, for he had nowhere else to go and Natasha kept visiting him. Then, around a week after, Steve came. Seeing him for the first time after he had pulled him off the Potomac river felt quite like a stressful moment for Bucky. He did remember Steve, but he couldn’t tell yet if it was his true memories or rather memories he had made up after the Smithsonian’s exhibit. But Steve was very patient. And Bucky felt loved for the first time in decades.

Since Cap didn’t have either a place to stay anymore - he couldn’t just go back to his bugged apartment - the two men left the hospital the same day and decided to move into the Avengers Tower. Steve didn’t have to do much before the Avengers accepted Bucky - well, Falcon and him started an endless quarrel but that entertained the others more often than it got in the way of team-bonding. Plus, thanks to his supersoldier condition, his concussion was no more a subject of concern. However, his Winter Soldier programming was. Natasha tried to reassured him by telling him what she’d done to Agent Barton that time he got mind-controlled by Loki. In fact, given his ability to make decisions on his own - and non-murderous ones, she was confident the concussion had freed him. And Bucky believed her.

“Mission report soldier!”

“I-”

Bucky closed his eyes and shook his head. He wasn’t exactly fighting back because he wasn’t under mind-control - that was a sure thing - but still he could feel all his programming, knocking at his mind’s doors. It was like an old habit. He wanted to please his handler. He knew it would make him feel better. Just tell him what happened. I got caught but I’m back. A few words and the man would let him go. But he couldn’t get himself to say those goddamn words. Because hell no, he didn’t want to. Bucky didn’t want to comply anymore.

“Don’t force me to use the words” said Simm in his cold voice.

Bucky raised up a confused look.

“The words...?”

The man sighed and turned away. Bucky looked in the direction of Schuttgart. The Baron shook his head at his colleague. Bucky didn’t only felt lost - he felt afraid, like he used to be in his first days after the fall of the helicarriers, when he didn’t know exactly who wanted to have him dead - or worse, to have him at all. Finally, the Hydra officer turned back to face him and started to speak in Russian very slowly:

“Longing. Rusted. Seventeen.”

Bucky’s body tensed up immediately. His heart started to beat faster and faster as an unknown fear crushed it. He was almost hyperventilating out of terror. Nothing had changed yet, but he was in mortal danger, he just _knew_  it. He tried to break free of his chair but he was tied so tightly to it that even his super strength was of no help. He only achieved to make his wrists bleed. He fell back, panting, tears in his eyes.

“No, no, please, no...” he muttered in the faintest voice as the other kept uttering the trigger words. “Please, _please_ , no...”

Simm stopped and looked at him. Bucky sniffed. The part in him that was still Sergeant Barnes, the cocky guy that would seduce any girl in the US, was left feeling deeply humiliated. But Bucky didn’t care. He had remained himself - and that was all that mattered.

“Mission report” asked again the officer.

“I don’t know” he replied in genuine sincerity - even if he had wanted to, he wouldn’t have been able to put up a mission report the way it was supposed to be.

The man slapped him.

“Mission report” he repeated with a angrier voice.

Bucky frowned and looked up at Simm defiantly. After a few seconds, he spoke up.

“I ran away.”

Then he spat in his face. Now that Simm had uncovered all his assets to him - and despite the fact that Bucky knew that there was no way he could actually resist the trigger words - the ex-assassin felt more confident (or just cheeky).

“You want my mission report? Fuck you! That’s my mission report!”

He smiled at his own response. Von Schuttgart flinched as if he had been genuinely offended but Simm just kept staring at him with cold, emotionless eyes. They faced each other for several seconds before Simm eventually turned his back on him and went to the technicians.

“Take him to the training room” he said.

 

***

 

Bucky felt his heart sinking when he entered the so-called training room. He remembered it. Actually, he had told the Avengers about it. It was the room where he remembered himself training other soldiers. The heck...?

The technicians untied his hands. Bucky resisted the temptation to beat the shit out of them all. It would be a waste of his energy, not to mention they were soldiers with guns all around the room that’ll probably shoot at him as soon as he’d get moving. And he couldn’t take _them_  down as quickly as he would with those untrained technicians.

He raised his hand to his face and scratched the fabric of his mask that they had put on him again (they definitively saw it as his muzzle). His eyes rose up to the large window, one floor above the room, behind which both Baron Von Schuttgart and Simm stood watching him.

“I’m offering you a deal, Winter Soldier” said Simm through the intercoms.

Another man entered the room. He was all geared up, in the same oppressive outfit that Bucky wore. His face was emotionless and his eyes looked determined but Bucky could tell there was nothing behind. His mind was completely empty thanks to brainwashing.

When he saw him, Bucky’s ears started to ring and he could barely hear the rest of Simm’s deal over the flow of memories that blank stare had brought back in his own mind. That, and the fact that he knew that guy.

“If you win this fight, we’re taking you back. If you loose, we’ll let you go.”

The ex-assassin frowned. That didn’t sound so bad. Where was the catch?

“Now, Dimitri, kill him.”

Ah, found it.

 

***

 

Dimitri moved forward and Bucky took a few steps back. He could feel the soldiers in his back raising their guns. They probably had orders to shoot him if he got out of the perimeter - a white line on the floor. He was actually almost crossing it. He moved his feet a little forward and his attention went back to Dimitri. The man was one inch taller than him but way more bigger. That doesn’t mean anything, though. Bucky remembered enemies that were twice his size and that he had defeated nonetheless - and easily, on top of that. He sighed. Let’s just get over with it already.

The ex-assassin pulled his hair to the back of his head but when he reached for his elastic he couldn’t find it. He frowned before he remembered. Steve had it. And he had made him swear to return to him safe and sound if he ever wanted to have it back. This memory somehow saddened Bucky. He wished that Steve were here - not to help him of course, but because his sole presence made him feel better. But Steve wasn’t here and he couldn’t make his bun either. This was silly, but Bucky felt like it was a sign. Tying his hair in a man bun was more than a matter of appearance - or even practical need: it made him feel more secure and more confident. In a way, more himself, less the Winter Soldier. To not be able to do it felt like it was the sign this battle wasn’t going to end well. As said: silly.

Nevermind.

Bucky reached out for his knife and felt relieved when his fingers closed on its handle. Dimitri took out his knife too but that didn’t scare Bucky away. In fact, he smiled. He was confident. The assassin was fast and strong - obviously - but the last time they’ve met, he still lacked some moves and techniques. The only thing he had feared is that they would have armed him and left himself unarmed. As it didn’t happen:

“Let’s dance, pal.”

Bucky ran to him and stroke him with his knife. But the other one dodged it so he then shot his metal arm at him vertically. Dimitri blocked it with his own arm and proceeded to stick his weapon in Bucky’s elbow where the flesh joined the metal. But Bucky let go of his knife and grabbed Dimitri’s wrist. He twisted it and the other assassin let out a brief scream of pain. Bucky brought back his arm to his chest so to give a stronger impulse to his next punch. This time it made Dimitri to tremble and he gathered his hands on his bleeding nose. This was the opportunity he’d waited for: Bucky tripped him and Dimitri fell straight to the ground.

Bucky pounced on him but only realised his mistake when it was too late: Dimitri while still holding his nose with one hand, took out a knife with the other one and stabbed him in his right flank. Bucky yelled and jumped away. He clenched his teeth and pressed the wound with both of his hands. Dimitri took advantage of it and rushed to him. They fell together and rolled onto the floor but eventually Dimitri came out top and began choking him to death. Bucky seized his wrists and attempted to move them away from his neck but the other man’s strength was near his own - and maybe, maybe it was actually superior to him. That couldn’t be possible. That just couldn’t happened! Bucky howled with rage and pushed his opponent away before punching him repeatedly in the face. He had lost his knife but his anger alone would be all he needed to win, he thought. However Dimitri managed to pull him off and they both got back on their feet.

Bucky’s suit was completely smudged with blood from his wound while Dimitri’s nose had bled out all over his face - although he didn’t seem to care. In fact, he didn’t looked like he cared about that fight at all. He was in full mode mission. Like Bucky on the helicarrier.

An unpleasant reminder.

“I hate you” he said.

It was as if he wanted to convinced himself he couldn’t be like that anymore.

Dimitri didn’t bother to answer. Like that, they resumed their fight. Each one of their punches or kicks was faster than the previous one. Their bodies were smoothly moving through the air, like a ballet - a mortal ballet. They kicked and punched and at the same time dodged and blocked. Their breath merged for they were so close to each other, their forehead almost touched. To everyone else, that fight was surely impressive to watch. They were moving so fast and yet, none of them had hit the ground again. They seemed equal. But only seemed. Bucky realised it with horror when his lungs started to need more air and his muscle to feel numb. The thick fabric of his mask made it hard for him to breath the way he would have needed to. But Dimitri was incapacitated by that same short of muzzle and yet his breathing remained peaceful. Dimitri was getting the upper hand over Bucky.

He punched him in the stomach and the Soldier fell to the ground with the taste of blood filling up his mouth. He tried to rise again but Dimitri kicked him in the head. Everything went dark for a full second. When he opened his eyes again, it was as if the ground was spinning all around him. He looked around for Dimitri and felt his heart beating faster when he couldn’t see him. He didn’t have the time to wonder over it, however, as Dimitri suddenly grabbed him from behind. At this moment, they both could hear Simm’s voice.

“Look at you, Winter Soldier” he said.

Bucky spat blood and nearly suffocated because of his mask. His vision was blurred by tears. Dimitri held him tight by his hair and it decidedly hurt - a lot.

“How weak have you grown since you ran away!”

There was nothing to argue here. Bucky had trained Dimitri in that exact same room and he would have defeated him every single time. And yet, here they were with Dimitri beating the shit out of him.

“Are you proud of yourself Soldier?” asked Simm.

The man had made a quick gesture towards Dimitri so that Dimitri wouldn’t kill his former teacher right away but rather wait for the order.

Bucky didn’t answer. If anything, “proud” was the exact opposite of what he usually felt about himself. Actually, the word he used sounded more like “guilty”. Steve kept telling him not to feel that way because he was under mind-control all the time - but that didn’t matter for he did it nonetheless. All those crimes. In fact, if he had indeed became a less efficient assassin, that was somewhat a relief.

“Do you want to know why you’re so weak?” asked Simm and he continued without waiting for Bucky’s answer (which wouldn’t come anyway) “It’s because you’re holding back. And you want to know why you’re holding back? Because you think you’re a good guy now, a hero. But let me tell you this, Barnes. You’re not. You are and you will ever stay the Winter Soldier. A soulless, most capable assassin in the word. This is your true nature and you must embrace it. It’ll only make you stronger.”

Dimitri grabbed his hair tighter and at the same time put a knife that had seemed to magically appeared (it didn’t, though, it was only one of the many knives they never forget to carry along in their pockets) to his throat. Bucky took a deep breath. His heart-rate was low again and his head wasn’t aching anymore. Suddenly, he caught Dimitri by his arms and threw him over his head. Then he dropped on him and forced him to let go of his knife so he could take it and attack him with it. But Dimitri had regained his composure and stopped the blade between the two palms of his hands. Then he stroke back.

They battled again and Bucky changed his strategy and tried to get in the same mood he had been when he trained with Steve. He tried to get the Winter Soldier out and let him take control of his body. But the Winter Soldier seemed to have gone quiet now. What the hell.

Bucky was almost crying out of frustration. He hoped the Avengers would come to save him by now. Alas, that was highly unlikely for he had really stated - that was even an order - that they couldn’t join him until he’d called them. But since Simm had taken his communicator away he would never be able to call them. He was all alone and about to die here because he’d gotten so soft he couldn’t even stand against his own apprentice.

Meanwhile, Simm kept talking.

“Ask me to say the words Barnes. You know you’ll win. Everything will be easier. You just need to ask me to say the words. Just ask. I’m right here waiting.”

Every one of his words were like swords perforating his body and leaving him breathless. It was all true. He couldn’t get the Winter Soldier out on his own and he needed the Winter Soldier to win. Bucky briefly looked up at Simm. _That was you plan all along, wasn’t it asshole?_ Simm didn’t just want him back, he wanted Bucky to surrender of his own free will, the same free will he had just recovered after decades of brainwashing and mind-control.

What a bastard.

So, to sum up: either Bucky died right here right now from the hands of the man he trained himself and who probably didn’t even recognized him - or he gave up and let Simm take possession of him. A sad smile appeared on his face. It wasn’t much of a choice, actually. If he could at least have said those fucking words himself - but no: it didn’t work like that. It would also have been nice if Dimitri could have been the one to spit them out. But once again, no, that wasn’t what Simm wanted.

Simm wanted him to beg for his slavery.

Bucky was pissed - and at the bottom of the fucking pit of despair.

“Fuck you.”

“I didn’t hear you” replied Simm with an equal voice.

“Just say it!” he shouted.

Simm raised his hand and Dimitri stopped hitting him. Bucky sighed. His face was covered with bruises, he had blood all over the inside of his muzzle - and into his mouth too - and the wound in his flank incapacitated the right side of his body almost completely. As the words echoed in the training room -

“Longing.”

\- and Bucky felt like his mind was being sent away -

“Rusted.”

 - and his whole being stepped on -

“Seventeen.”

 - he finally let out tears. He cried his pain out because soon, he wouldn’t even know that he’s in pain.

“Daybreak.”

That whole mission -

“Furnace.”

 - had turned to be more than a disaster. It was his worst nightmare, the outcome he had feared since day one, since he had gotten free of Hydra.

“Nine.”

Now, he wasn’t even sure -

“Benign”

\- that he would ever be able to be himself again.

“Homecoming.”

He closed his eyes.

“One.”

His last though was for Steve.

_You save me once, please come save me again. I need you._

“Freight car.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That chapter took me like twice the time to write and review than it usually takes. I really didn't expect it! I hope you guys will enoy it as much as I loved digging into its writting!


	5. The Avengers strike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After waiting in vain for Bucky's signal, the Avengers decide to attack the facility. They find Simm but not Bucky. What has happened to him?

The team was gathered under a camouflaged tent. It was a really high-tech one but, as Clint pointed it out, they just needed it to be made of white fabric, honestly. It was snowy everywhere - even the trees’ trunks were white. Okay, with black strips, I gave you that. Still: white everywhere.

But above all, it’s was cold - frickin’ cold. Actually, the cold wouldn’t have been that much of a problem if they hadn’t been waiting for that long already. It made the fingers go all blue.

“This isn’t right. Something must have gone wrong.” Steve said for the fifth time.

Heads turned around at the sound of his voice but nobody spoke.

“I’m sure of it” said the blonde as if the reason everybody had remained silent was because he hadn’t convinced them yet - it wasn’t.

“Steve, for God’s sake, can’t you just stop walking in a circle like a dog? You’re giving me a headache!” said Tony in his muffled and almost electronic voice.

As always when he had his helmet on, they all could hear him both live and through their earbuds. The Avenger sat in a camping chair (a upgraded one for no regular camping chair could have supported that weight), legs crossed, twiddling his thumbs. When the wait started, he’d removed his helmet - for a brief moment. He’d sneezed, let out a booming “are you fucking kidding me” and put it right back on. Since then, nobody had seen his face again.

Steve stopped pacing up and down at the entrance of the tent and looked at Tony, crossing his arms on his chest - a typical Cap pose.

“But something went wrong Tony!” he said.

“Sixth.” said Clint.

Sam came up to him and put a firm hand on his shoulder. He also gave him a fair smile though he was freezing and his teeth were chattering - for a short instant, Captain America wondered whether the Hulk, if he had come with them, would have also felt cold. After all, he wore nothing but pants - and torn pants in top of that. Came to think of it, it would have been nice having the Hulk with them. Unfortunately, the Avengers had another HYDRA problem to deal with and thus decided to split in half. Bucky, Steve, Clint, Sam and Tony went to the Alaska facility while Natasha, Bruce and Thor went to a secrete location somewhere in the middle of the Sahara. The idea was also to have Nat and Bruce tried out a new tactic regarding the Hulk - and more precisely the un-hulking part that’d always been a twitchy subject. So in case there was a problem, they needed a strong person able to contain the Hulk. Rogers was able but there was no way he would let anything separate him from Bucky. Iron Man was able, too, but there was no way he would miss the sight of Barnes in action. That only left Thor. Not that bad actually; Clint had noticed how Thor and the Hulk tended to get along very well (and how that included a lot of punching each other, hence him being perfectly fine with not being that close to both of them).

These three Avengers left the Tower early in the morning then the other group departed two hours later. Now, they were stuck under that stupid tent waiting for Bucky’s signal.

And he was really taking his time.

“Listen Cap,” said Sam their personal man-in-charge for all their PTSD’s “you’re stressed and we get it. But why can’t you trust Barnes? That’s not his first mission. Heck, the man’s done more missions than most of us!”

“I know but-”

“So get a sit and wait patiently just like Clint, okay?”

They both looked at Clint and Clint stared back at them. He was sitting in another camping chair next to Tony, inspecting his quiver. Hawkeye’s bow and quiver were not to make fun of. His arrows had detachable heads and each head had a specific purpose. There were the regular ones - but sharp enough to get through SHIELD’s latest armour - the ones that’d knock you out with an electric shock, the ones containing a solid net and so on. For the moment, he was mostly looking at his knock-out arrows while also focused on the little device on its lap that he used to communicate with Natasha in Morse code. She wasn’t answering as fast as usual for the moment and he assumed her mission was a bit more exciting than his. Lucky girl.

“Yeah, well” he replied “I’m not exactly waiting patiently.” He glared in the direction of Stark weirdly quiet. The archer briefly wondered if he was taking a nap. Because, for all they know, he could be. “More like freezing. Can’t move a muscle anymore.”

Taking a nap and in a well-heated suit - Clint had no doubt the suit had heating.

Sam grinned but Steve resumed his anxious walk, thinking out loud.

“Yeah okay, but what if he’s in danger? What if he couldn’t sent us the signal? Stark, don’t you have some kind of... tracking device that could indicate us his health or something like that? Don’t you have something that could at least allow us to know that he’s still alive?”

Sam looked at him with his eyes wide open.

“Wow there” he said “what are you talking about? A device that would know the every states of our body?”

“Yeah, basically.”

Sam didn’t answer. He just kept staring at Steve. The blonde could also feel the gaze of the two others - even with Tony’s helmet on. He scowled.

“What? Could be an idea. Be sure the ones on mission are safe.”

Sam grabbed him by the shoulders to force him to look at him.

“Man” the Falcon said “you literally _took down_  SHIELD because it was spying on people. And they weren’t even close to what you’re suggesting!”

“Damn right” interrupted Tony. He waved weirdly before he continued (he used to make weird gestures when he talked but that one seemed to be the “not trying to be the one that said it because you’re gonna punch me but” one) “if - and I’m really saying if, obviously I didn’t do it - Clint tell him I didn’t - if I had only submitted the idea, to you, of that short of tracking, you would have hit me.”

Steve shrugged and broke off Sam’s embrace. He looked away, in the general direction of the facility Bucky was infiltrating at the moment. He sighed.

“You’re right. All of you. But...”

He kicked the small snow lump that was made from the snow falling off the branches of the tree just a minute ago.

“I’m just so worried. If anything had happened to him...”

Sam shoved him.

“Nothing had happened to him. That would make me too happy and he knows it.”

He smiled and Steve smiled back at him.

They waited for another twenty minutes. The wait was over an hour now and Steve got more anxious than ever. This should not have taken so long. Bucky’s mission was simple. Get in, make himself recognized as the Winter Soldier and use his fear/influence/whatever to obtain answers to their questions - the fuck is going on here? - and then call the rest of them so they can all arrest everyone and call it a day. A 10-minute-mission. At the most.

So why was Bucky taking all this time?

“That’s it.” the blonde finally said. “I’m going in.”

Tony sighed and rose to his feet.

“Cap” he said in a last attempt to calm him down.

“No, Tony. It’s been an hour. That’s too long. Something has happened and I’m going to find what. I won’t stay still another second.”

“Oh thanks God” said Clint. He stood up and attached his quiver in his back. “I though we had decided to turn ourselves into snowmen.”

Sam stretched his back and tightened his wings.

“Let’s go” said Captain America.

 

***

 

Taking down a HYDRA facility was no easy task for common people. But for the Avengers? Stark shot the entrance guard from the air, one second before Rogers got to the door. Meanwhile, Clint had bypassed the entry control panel with one of his electric arrows. He and Sam then drew the soldiers out and inside the woods where they took them down one by one while Captain America and Iron Man entered the building. They parted to cover more ground, kicking out every person they encountered. When Steve got into the room with the large map lying on the table, Falcon and Hawkeye informed the both of them that they were inside too. Now, Steve was moving slower and watched carefully at every corner. He didn’t say a word despite his whole body burning to call for Bucky. But maybe they had him prisoner somewhere and would hurt him if they realized he was about to find them. So he kept his mouth shut and only his brain called - silently - for his friend.

Finally, the blonde entered the biggest room yet. It was two floor height, with a large window where the second floor would be. The general look of the room reminded him of a gym. There was even a white mark that delimited a rectangle. Three doors: the one he came from, in his back, one in front of him that seemed to open to a dark corridor and one in the other side of the room. That one was locked and heavy due to it being in metal. Above it, mid-air, stood a steel footbridge with its stairs going down near the door.

Nobody around.

Steve lowered his shield to take a better look at his environment. That’s when he got hit in the head.

The punch was strong enough to make him join the ground. Half-confused, he still managed to call the others.

“Backup needed here!”

“On my way” Stark answered through his earbud.

Steve rose back to his feet and faced his opponent. The man was huge - maybe more than him - he had dark, greasy hair and he wore a suit that was disturbingly similar to Bucky’s. But. The man was already in a pretty bad shape. His lower lip was cut and his right eye socket had been destroyed. Steve also noticed that he stood uneasy on his left leg. It was probably broken - or at least highly damaged.

“Who are you?” he asked.

The other man didn’t answer. But he suddenly moved again and Steve only had time to rise his shield. The blade of the knife slipped on it. Without thinking, the blonde punched back and Dimitri stumbled a few seconds. He spat blood on the floor and when he looked up again Steve could see his emotionless - yet determined - eyes. However, before they could make a single move again, the window above their heads exploded.

Baron Von Schuttgart was thrown out of his room from behind his giant screen and brutally landed on the ground, not so far from the two fighters. Iron Man emerged from the hole in the glass and hovered near the ceiling while aiming at the small guy with both of his palms open.

“Stand down” he said.

Dimitri chose that moment to attack Steve but the blonde hit him in the head with his shield, knocking him out. Von Schuttgart was still on the floor, breathing heavily. His eyes met with Steve’s and his body seemed to shrink down out of fear.

“Where is Bucky? What have you done to him?” shouted Captain America.

Schuttgart didn’t answer for a few seconds - maybe because he was too afraid - but he suddenly seemed to gather up his courage.

“I will... never tell you” he said and then he clenched his jaw.

“No!” yelled Steve - but it was too late.

By the time he got to him, Schuttgart was already dead from the poison.

“Dammit!”

“Did he do it?” asked a new voice.

Steve and Tony both turned towards the footbridge where a tall man stood, leaning over the railing and looking down with both curiosity and amusement. He didn’t even flinched when Stark aimed his weapons at him - although he was flying above him only five feet away from his face.

“I mean, I never doubted he would” he kept on “I just always though that whole “suicide, no surrendering” was a waste, really. But I guess we always need people like him. Fanatics.”

“Who are you?” asked Steve “what have you done to Bucky?”

Simm’s eyes narrowed when he looked at Steve. Even from that distance, the blonde could feel the coldness in his stare. The man had a pure aura of evil.

“You mean the Winter Soldier?” He smiled. Steve shivered. “We sent him on a mission. Obviously.”

“What mission?” asked Tony who had come even closer.

Simm smirked at him.

“Sorry, I’m afraid I can’t tell.”

“Oh yeah? Well I’m afraid I’ll have to punch you until you do” replied Stark, ready to open fire.

But before he could, Simm took out a gun and shot. Steve figured out who his target was one second before and thus dived to the ground to protect Dimitri. The shot hit his shield right in the centre but it wasn’t a bullet. It was more like a beam of blueish energy. Steve looked over his shield. What the...?

“Too bad” said Simm.

However, his shot had drawn Tony’s attention away so he had time to take another try. And this time, he aimed directly at his own head. The beam hit him hard and he fell flat on the plateform. Steve watched it with astonishment.

“What the...?”

He couldn’t even finish his sentence. The hell had just happened?

But he wasn’t done yet. As he had focused his attention on the HYDRA officer, he couldn’t see Dimitri blinking twice while regaining consciousness and then grabbing his knife and striking in the direction of his right flank. But suddenly, the man screamed with pain when his wrist got pierced by an arrow. He looked down at it with confusion and then up at the window where an archer wearing purple waved at him.

“Not this time, pal” said Hawkeye.

Sam landed right beside Steve one second later and proceeded to tie up the still confused brainwashed soldier. Meanwhile, Rogers had ran across the room and leapt up the stairs. Tony was already at Simm’s side.

“He’s alive?” asked Steve with surprise.

“See for yourself” answered Tony.

Steve knelt down, his face near Simm’s.

“Speak” he said.

Simm blinked.

“Who are you?”

His face displayed a real surprise. His eyes went from Cap to Iron Man and back to Cap. When he spoke again, his voice was almost a whisper.

“And, er, who am I?”

The two friends stared at each other.

“You’ve got to be kidding me” Steve said.

 

***

 

They were back at the Avengers Tower. Debriefing time: Tony was standing in front of a giant screen, hanged up on the wall on the other side of the table, and was putting on it everything they got from the facility, including the reports and the files of the prisoners locked up one floor below. Sam and Clint were listening to him with attention - Sam maybe more than Clint who was just grateful to find himself in a warm place again - but Steve was sinking himself deep down into one of the couches - and scowling.

“When we crashed into their little home” said Tony “they destroyed all their computers and devices - a really low blow.”

“Fuck?” Clint said as if he was looking for confirmation.

Tony rose an eyebrow at him.

“Who do you think I am? Clint, seriously! These guy’s equipments... Hell, it was outdated even in my father’s time! Well, I’m not saying I managed to recover everything __everything__  but I must say I did an amazing job-”

“Sir” said JARVIS’ voice “may I bring to your attention that I was also of valuable contribution?”

“-JARVIS and I did an amazing job” corrected Tony. “Anyway, there’s nothing worth of our interest, whatsoever. I mean, we already knew that the whole thing was sleeping during the last decades so no surprise. Nothing for all those years. However, as for Barnes, we may have something. I mean, beside the fact that Natasha will soon be here and she’s gonna get answers from that brainwashed, Russian, whatever dude-”

“Cut it Stark” said Clint. He looked highly annoyed. If Tony kept babbling like that, he would probably start to wish he was back under the camouflaged tent. Okay, maybe not that far. To wish he had never gotten out of his bed this morning in the first place? “What did you find?”

Tony removed all the pictures and data that were previously on screen and replaced them with new infos, mostly what looked like videos and more codes lines that nobody could decipher except Tony himself.

“Well, obviously, I found the footages from the surveillance cams but more importantly-”

Steve burst out of his chair.

“Play them !”

Tony grimaced.

“Actually, Cap, I’m not quite think that’s a good-”

“Show. Them.”

Tony raised his hands in surrender.

“Okay, okay.”

He played the footages taken in the gym room where they had fought Schuttgart and the other guys. Steve watched as it showed Bucky forced to come in.

And then fight.

And then surrender.

What happened next was Bucky - or rather, now, the Winter Soldier - beating the shit out of Dimitri - and then leaving the room. Tony searched for a few seconds and played another footage. In this one the Winter Soldier could be seen leaving the facility through a tunnel. The blue-print of the building indicated than this tunnel’s entrance was at the opposite of the facility’s main door. Also the timing showed that the Winter Soldier left twenty-three minutes after Bucky came in. Which meant forty-four minutes before they got in there themselves. No wonder why they didn’t see him.

Steve clenched his fist so hard his knuckles turned white.

“But as I was saying” Tony started again but his voice was uncharacteristically slow - the truth was he didn’t want to attract on himself Cap’s sudden need of punching his anger out “we may have a hint on his mission.”

But before he could say anything more Natasha entered the room. When he saw her, Steve looked somewhat relieved. He was probably confident she would get answers from the Russian supersoldier and confident that these answers would help them find Bucky - and fast. He almost ran towards her, but Sam grabbed his arm and shook his head. He would go talking to Natasha, not Steve. The redhead noticed the silent exchange and nodded. Then she turned at Stark.

“What’s that hint?”

She had been listening to the whole debrief through her earbud while she was still on the Quinjet, on her way back here.

“How was your mission?” asked Clint nonetheless.

She gave him a playful smile.

“Great.”

She didn’t add more and came leaning on the table, next to her friend. Clint smiled at her but quickly turned back to Tony.

“The hint is another telegram. Sent three minutes after Barnes left the facility. It’s encoded, of course, but I’m gonna work on it right now, while Nat, you take care of our big guy.”

“I’ll help you” said Steve to Tony.

Everyone gazed at him. His face went red.

“What? Back in the war, we used to decipher five HYDRA telegrams a day, you know..”

Tony shrugged. But he didn’t refuse Steve’s demand.

 

Clint was observing Natasha through the one-way mirror. He couldn’t understand a single word that was being pronounced in there for the simple reason they were speaking Russian. It didn’t matter, though, Natasha would tell them everything when she’d be done and beside, he just wanted to see her in action. She wasn’t trying to look fearsome or on the contrary to seduce Dimitri, nor she was trying to act like the “nice cop”. She was smiling and speaking in a casual voice. But everyone who had met her - and Dimitri was getting this pleasure right now - knew that was how she was the most terrifying. As for the brainwashed super-soldier, he seemed to... talk. At least, that was something. Clint had interrogated their other prisoner, the one that had erased his own memory. It wasn’t like that guy didn’t want to talk, he just had nothing to say. He looked confused and couldn’t even give them his name. His voice was kind of soft and he didn’t looked at all like he wanted to hurt Barton. But God, his _eyes_... It gave Clint the shivers.

In the other side of the room, the interrogation had ended or maybe Natasha had decided to take a break. Clint moved to the door to meet her in the corridor and nearly bumped into Steve. He was standing nervously in the middle of the corridor and for God knew how long.

“So?” he pressed Nat as soon as her head popped out of the door. “What did he say? Where’s Bucky? What did they do?”

The redhead looked at him angrily.

“Shut the fuck off Rogers!”

She kept looking until he lowered his eyes. Clint felt bad for him. Steve was completely freaking out while probably thinking everything was his fault.

“Cap” Clint said “you really need to relax, okay? We’ll find him. Definitively. And I’m sure he’s fine.” He remembered the footage of Dimitri beating Bucky up. “Well, mostly.”

Natasha sighed and moved forward to hug him.

“It’s going to be okay, Steve. I promise.”

She stepped back and looked at both of them - but especially at Steve.

“The thing is” she said “and despite what you could think, this guy is not a mindless beast or a robot. Like Barnes, I guess his mind have been messed up with a fair number of times - too many. And... like Barnes, I’m sure the real Dimitri is still somewhere inside.”

“Dimitri?” asked Clint.

“Yeah, that’s his name. Well, at last, the name of the person standing in that chair. He doesn’t react like us anymore or feel the same way we do, but...” She glanced at Hawkeye, embarrassed. “Clint... you know what I’m talking about.”

Clint had already figured out - and nodded.

“He’s like me when Loki took control of my mind.”

“Exactly. Except that he can’t take any initiative on his own. He only cares about his mission.”

“And what’s his mission?” asked Steve coming out of his silence.

Natasha gave him a sad smile.

“To beat up James. He even told me he had recognized him, actually.”

Steve winced.

“What? Recognized? But-”

“I’ll tell you everything guys, don’t worry. But come on, the others are waiting.”

They returned to their - cosy - briefing room. Rhodes had joined them as well as Thor (who hadn’t bothered to take off his armour as if he was ready to get back in action) but Bruce was nowhere around. He was surely resting in his room. The guy deserved it after today’s mission.

On the screen, there was a new data. Clint pointed at it.

“You cracked the telegram?” he asked Tony.

“Yep, we did. Cap was right actually. The code was different but the system was the same he remembers from the war. Seriously, which secret organization does that? Oh, I guess it makes sense when you know these guys didn’t even heard when SHIELD fell. Yeah, I found that out when I was reading their files. Amazing how long they managed to keep themselves away from the world.”

“Tony.” said Steve.

“Right. The telegram.”

It was three lines long. The first one read a word in German - the safe code, explained Steve - the second one “The Winter Soldier will have them” and the last one was just numbers.

“Date and coordinates” said Natasha.

“But what’s “them”? What will Bucky have?” asked Clint.

The redhead turned to him.

“Doesn’t matter. This telegram indicates his extraction point. So long as we don’t know what mission they gave him or if we can stop him, that’s all we need to find him anyway.”

She patted Steve on the back.

“Come on. Let’s go get our boy back.”


	6. Longing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's hard to let go of the past.
> 
> Bucky's gone and the Winter Soldier has taken his place. Steve thinks about their childhood and realised he may have been oblivious to his friend's feelings.

“Isha, listen to my voice” said the man before he started uttering the words - so quickly that Bucky couldn’t react in time and soon the words were like a hypnotic chant that made him lower his gun.

“...Freight car” finished the man.

Bucky didn’t move. Both the man and Steve stared at him, in expectation.

“Soldat?” asked the handler.

Steve could feel his heart beating faster. He shook his head. That wasn't happening.

It took a dozen of seconds but the words finally came out of Bucky’s mouth - maybe these seconds were proof of his reluctance? - Steve strongly hoped so.

“Ready to comply.”

The man nodded with a pleased smile.

“Good. Now, kill Captain America.”

Unfortunately it was with no reluctance at all that Bucky lifted his gun again but this time aimed at his best friend. Steve felt like his heart had stopped beating.

“Bucky, no...” he said in a hoarse voice. “Bucky, please, it’s me, it’s Steve. Bucky, please, remember...”

Bucky shoot.

 

 ~ ONE WEEK AGO ~

 

 

Steve was on the balcony, watched as the sun disappeared below the horizon - the skyscrapers had already covered the beautiful pinky and orange colours of the dying fireball from the eyes of the passers-by. The noises due to the traffic was almost inaudible at this height and the blonde had to bend to look down at these little toys.

“Steve. You’re okay?”

He didn’t step back from the railing but turned his head towards the door where Natasha stood, a hand on its frame. She slowly let her hand go and went leaning on the railing beside him. Steve smiled at her but his smile vanished once he looked back at the horizon.

“It’s been a long day” he said.

Natasha nodded.

“Yeah. A really long day.”

For several minutes, none of them spoke. They just stood staring in the distance. Steve was still thinking about that really, really long day. This morning, they were leaving the Tower, not long after Natasha’s group were themselves gone for their own mission. By nine in the morning, Bucky was already undercover. By noon, they had already taken down the facility - and lost him. By three in the afternoon, Natasha was back and interrogating Dimitri. And now, by seven in the evening, he was standing outside, staring at the city beneath his feet whose citizens were ready to get some good sleep after a good day at work, while his own best friend was God-knew-where and doing God-feared-what.

He wished he could be granted some sleep, too. But that was of no use to even try: neither his mind nor his body would ever accept to rest when he knew Bucky was back under mind-control, back inside the prison that was his body when the Winter Soldier took over.

That wasn’t fair. He just got him back.

_Steve._

He felt Natasha wriggling and thus turned to face her.

“His extraction is due to Tuesday” she spat out, without even having to mention whose extraction she was talking about.

“I know.”

He almost reminded her that - with the help of Tony and JARVIS’ computational power of course - he was the one who had cracked the telegram that held that information. Natasha figured out the numbers being coordinates and dates but it wasn’t like he had exited the room beforehand. However, he managed to keep his mouth shut when he realised it was his anger speaking. His hands clenched on the railing.

_Steve._

“I think I need to punch something.”

He left Natasha on the balcony and went a fair amount of floors below, where the gym was. No one else was training. Good. The blond had no intention to speak with anyone whatsoever. He hung up a punching bag and started to punch it efficiently. He remembered doing that a lot the first days after he’d been unfrozen. At that time, all he wanted was to forget that his whole world was long gone. Tonight, he just wanted to go twelve hours back.

Just twelve. And tell him -

 

_Steve, I remember you._

 

His cell was cramped. Not a surprise, thought: big spaces yield big thoughts. Yield musing. About why he was here. About who he was - about memories from the past. Thus his dark cramped cell didn’t work as well as intended for he had remembered. A name. Not his - he knew it would come back eventually, he didn’t care when - but the name of someone much more important than himself. And the Soldier held to that name.

Every morning, he would be dragged outside his cell, taken to the training room where he’d have to fight. Failure meant punishments. Punishment was fire, sometimes starvation or sleep deprivation. Most of the time, fiddling with his arm. It was the most convenient way to punish him actually: messing up with the arm, causing great amount of pain because of the nerve connected to the bones and the brain and then fixing it up, making it fully functional again within the hour. Real effective.

Failure meant punishment and success meant day alone in the cell and food for diner.

_He’ll come._

Since the day he woke up to the dark chamber, his fighting skills had greatly improved and his body, thanks to the few injections back in the first days, was way stronger and more resistant than the ones of his opponents. He wasn’t just fighting them anymore. They wanted him to perform specific tasks like knocking them out without a sound or taking their weapons away before being shot. The Soldier always complied without a word. It was useless - worse: it can yield punishments. He complied - and waited. For after the fight, he was alone.

_I remember you._

Loneliness should have led to madness. Or, at least, permanent mind confusion, about why he should bother about his situation or resist to his handlers any longer. But the Soldier discovered that loneliness could also be used to search for memories inside the brain. He knew he was someone before. He knew that “before” referred to a fall. He fell off a train - what the heck was he doing in there to even fall off it - and afterwards woke up in his dark and cramped cell. Furthermore, he knew that before, he was a soldier, maybe in another army or maybe in the same - didn’t matter. What mattered was, he knew that before he had someone. Someone he really cared about. His blond face appeared sometimes in his dreams. It made him feel both sad and hopeful. He had only recalled his name recently but he cherished it as his most valuable memory. The fact was, he couldn’t say it out loud because they were listening to him - and memory recalls meant punishments - nor could he write it on the walls of his cell. He could, technically, but once again, they would discover it - and punish him. So he kept the name running inside his head all the day long and in the middle of the night, he’d wake up and whisper it to himself. The name had the ability to calm him down. The name also helped him bring back more memories.

The Soldier had remembered the name because it was too important. Keeping that name meant keeping his identity. And his identity was to long for them meeting again. This made him wait.

And fight.

 

_Steve, come please.  
_

 

Punching didn’t help that much. His whole body was sweating but his brain made him feet like it wasn’t enough to keep it busy. Steve was back in the twenties. Bucky didn’t like fighting. Unlike Steve, his body had always grown the way it was supposed to, always made him look like a tough an’ pretty little guy. Even in kindergarten, no kid would try bullying him. He had a confident mind in a perfectly-shaped body. While Steve grew thinner and asthmatic-er, Bucky grew stronger and taller. Even if at this time, his two arms together weren’t the size of his present right biceps. Because Bucky saw no point in workout. He would never try to exercise, never wanted to learn fighting. His natural shape could get him all the ladies he would ever desire, actually. So why doing something he had a slight repulsion in?

Because Steve needed him to.

The tiny Steve, the asthmatic Steve, his best friend when on his tenth birthday suddenly decided he wanted to stand up again bullies, to fight them and not only his own but everyone else’s too. “You don’t understand, Buck” he would tell his friend “what they do is wrong and they hurt people! I can’t stand doing nothin’ about it!” Well, actually, he could have. Stupid, stubborn, selfless Steve. He didn’t need to stand up against __every__  bullies. But he did, nonetheless. And thus Bucky would look down at him, gently smiled and said “Okay, I think I get it Steve. Just promise me you won’t put yourself in too much troubles okay?” - to which Stupid Steve would reply “Never, Buck. You know me.” Which was true: Bucky did know Steve.

Which is why, the same day Steve started to pick up fights, Bucky started to learn how to fight.

The blond couldn’t remember whether he had been aware of that, back in the days. Aware that Bucky helped him getting out of all those fights alive by kicking the bullies’ asses himself while sulking because he disapproved of fighting like dogs. Did Tiny’n’Stupid Steve know the self-sacrifice his best friend had made for him? Or was he too focused on fighting bad guys that he couldn’t conceive that his best friend didn’t like it as much as he did.

“I’m so sorry Buck.”

Steve looked around. The punching bag facing him still rocked back and forth from his last punch. Apart from it, the gym room was quiet. A few days ago, Bucky would have been here with him. They would have trained together for an hour and a half before falling on the ground, exhausting and laughing. Before the serum, Steve’s only cared about punishing the bullies. But now, his body just couldn’t stand inactivity. And because of the serum Bucky had running in his own blood, a serum quite similar to his, Steve had assumed that the brunet felt the same way than himself. Now, as he thought about it, maybe it was true they had too much energy, but on the other hand, surely running or dancing would do just as fine. But how could he know when he never asked?

“Jeez, I fucked up so much!”

The blond gave a final punch on the bag that almost fly straight to the ceiling. When it came back, the man caught it with both of his hands and took it down. Steve removed the bandages around his knuckles and his wrist, tidied up the room and headed back to the elevator and the common floor where the Avengers used to take have their meals together.

“Cap!” shouted Tony when he saw him “for God’s sake, finally! No, seriously, where have you been? You know the trouble it is to gather food for you all? And keep it warm until you are all - actually - here? Real pain in the ass, Rogers. I know, I don’t have to bother myself with that stuff, I’m too kind but-”

“Thanks, Tony” said Steve - and because Tony did not expect that, he shut up and Steve could go sitting in the sofa next to Natasha. She smiled at him and he poorly gave her a smile back.

“Two days waiting” he said to her, low enough so that she was the only one that could hear him “this is gonna drive me mad, Nat. I’m so worried for Bucky and... and I realised I screwed it. When we were together. This is all my fault.”

Natasha put a hand on his knee and looked at him gravely.

“No, it’s not. It’s not your fault Rogers.” She sighed before adding “Steve, Bucky chose do to this mission, nobody forced him, you less than the others. We couldn’t have known it was all a trap.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Stop feeling guilty. That’s not with this shitty reaction that you’re gonna help him. So, if you want to help Barnes, you eat and you sleep and in two-days time, we get you your boyfriend back, I promise.”

Steve frowned at the redhead - but he was smiling.

_Steve._

“Nat, Bucky’s not my boyfriend.”

“Yeah and my weapons aren’t fucking sticks” said Clint who happened to be near them because he was picking up a pizza slice from Nat’s plate.

“No you’re right, Barton” the woman replied coldly “if you don’t put this back right now, they won’t be sticks but matchsticks.”

“Guess I’ll have Tony make me a mini bow then” replied the archer already mouthful.

Natasha glared at him dreadfully. Steve laughed.

_You._

While eating his own pizza, the blond thought back at the life he and Bucky had before the war. It wasn’t easy - not even close sometimes - but it had that kind of simplicity he could feel again in this crazy, troubled, far-from-regular family the Avengers formed. Trying to retrieve a past long gone made no sense. Steve now only wished to share that new and simple life with Bucky.

He just hoped they’d arrive on time.

 

_You never came._

 

His cell had a hard mattress and a window two feet above his head. Though it, all he could see was the sky - which mean he could only see a white rectangle. The cell had no heat and the bed’s sheet was so thin its effectiveness relied more on psychology than on its physical properties. But the Asset didn’t care. He spent all his days outside, fighting in snowstorms way more freezing than his cell during the coldest nights in winter. Also, he had no idea why he would want to improve the comfort. Improving his cell’s comfort wasn’t what he was meant to. Fighting was.

As far as the Asset could remember, he had always fought. He could remember fighting a long time back in France. And in Italy, Germany. But these memories were as blur as those of his first days as the Asset - he knew he hadn’t always been the Asset because it was common sense that he wasn’t born with his metal arm; hence he got his purpose in life the day he got his weapon. Some days, he would get that feeling that he had switched side between these first days and now. But what he could really remember with precision was the ice. The sensation of the chamber - a suffocating space - with the sensation of cold or the wait for it. And suddenly, nothing more. The Asset had stopped to exist. Well, until they woke him up again for a new mission. It would always be confusing because nothing felt familiar but at the same time, part of his brain preferred it that way. Made the mind blank from anything that would perturb the mission. Because this was the second thing the Asset could remember with certainty: the Asset’s purpose was to fight in missions. It always had been.

There were different types of fights, of course. First, there were the training fights. Half-naked, outside in the snow, he had to combat ten, some days a dozen, of heavy armed soldiers. He didn’t have to kill them but they had the right to hurt him as much as they could. He learnt that this wasn’t unfairness: it was his lesson. He got hurt: his fault. But he never got wounded badly - he was the Asset, their best weapon, they were no match for him. Unless he hadn’t fully recover from the cryo and still felt dizzy in certain parts of his body. But even then, he tried to not let that incapacitate him.

Beside the training fights, there were the teaching fights. They gave him students. Men like him - almost like him: they hadn’t a metal arm nor had been given the same serum than he had - who had learned that their purpose in life was to fight for their handlers, whoever these guys were - nobody bothered about it, it changed all the time and it wasn’t useful for the missions’ success. The Asset taught these men everything he knew about fighting - never helped them win a fight against him, though. Also, he had to teach them others things that weren’t about fighting but were useful nonetheless when on mission: multiple languages, cultures of the western countries, ways to survive in westerns cities without being noticed etc. Basically, how to act like a average American dude. These men made good partners for the Asset when the handlers decided not to send him on the mission alone.

These missions were the last type of fights.

The Asset was good. Actually, he was the best. No soldiers could defeat him, no western government could get its hands on him. The best. Still, something bothered him. It was like a pain in the back of his head. Pain was a common feeling - pain was caused by enemies’ weapons, punishments for mission failure (or - because he couldn’t remember if that ever happened - for mission partially failed in regard of certain parameters) or because of a programming start-over. But this pain was none of the above. It was at a lower level than the others. However it was constant. Every time he woke up, even when they had his memories cleaned up right before the cryo, the pain would start immediately. It was something important, apparently, but he couldn’t figure what - or why. He surmised it had to do with something he had forgotten. Still, what important thing would have they made him forget? His memories from his past missions were meaningless - which was why they often cleared them up in his mind, so he couldn’t be distracted by them anymore - and his memories needed to the success of the current mission - like fighting skills, spying skills - were never missing.

The Asset never figured out what did that pain in the back of his head mean. But he wished for the time it would stop and leave him alone. So he could work properly.

 

***

 

Steve looked up at the pale bluish moon hovering Manhattan and the big tower in its centre in which he lived. Diner with the others - especially Nat - had calmed him down a little, for sure. Maybe he would be able to get some sleep after all. He didn’t even want it but Natasha had convinced him that he had to be in good shape for Tuesday. When they’d go after Bucky.

He closed the windows and went to bed. His eyes lingered over the door of Bucky’s room. He clenched his pillow tighter, trying to hold back his tears.

“Don’t worry, Buck” he whispered to the cold lonely night “you’ll be home real soon. And I’ll never let anybody take you away from me ever again.”

 

_You never came._

 

The Asset has a mission.

The Asset can feel the pain in the back of his head, more vivid than ever. He has finally remembered what it means. The pain is a name.

The Asset’s handler has explained to him his mission and has ordered him to forget his recent memories. Without the chair, it isn’t easy. In fact, because it would take too much energy, the Asset has elected to just ignore them. Plus, when he focuses real hard on his mission, even the pain in the back of his head disappears. That makes the Asset satisfied of himself. He’s still the best.

And now he can work properly.

The Asset is no more longing for something.


	7. Rusted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Winter Soldier is on mission. He must retrieve some HYDRA files stolen by the Soviets. The mission is simple but the Soldier keeps making mistakes. What is wrong with him? Why won't his mind and his body work normally?

The Soldier lands the plane. It makes a smooth sound when it touches the ground and its thin layer of snow covering it. The blowing wind isn’t strong either and visibility is almost clear.

The Soldier comes out of the plane and kneels down. He removes his mask. Looks at it. There’s dried blood all over it. His mouth is full of it, too. He took some snow and rinses his mouth then his mask. He then puts it back on. The coldness of the fabric makes him shiver during a second.

Much better, though. Breathing not longer impeded.

He gets up and tries to look in the distance. Snowflakes are flying right into his eyes. That makes him blink too many times. He goes back into the aircraft.

Surely, there must be some equipment nearby. While he’s at it, he checks on his own weapons storage - sheaths handily placed on his jacket, his trousers and even inside the heel of his boots. They’re all empty. The Soldier frowns for a second. Usually, he carries - at the very least - two guns and a knife.

The fuck he hasn’t even one.

He closes his eyes and tries to figure the reason of this emptiness out of his scattered recollections of recent and older past.

Memory retrieved.

He sees himself fighting Dimitri, weapon-less. It means that was a test. He passed it - obviously - but they had to send him on his mission so quickly afterwards that they didn’t have time to hand him his weapons back - except for a rifle.

The Soldier looks in the drawers the back of the vehicle holds. He finds his glasses - well the type he’s used to. Good. Then he finds guns and knives. Just the types he uses, too. The man makes a neutral smile. His handlers apparently know exactly how he fights. That’s good. He always prefers it when his handlers aren’t completely incompetent folks who can’t kit him with the right stuff. That makes missions harder. That makes time outside cry longer.

And longer time outside cryo is always of utmost _annoyance_.

 

The mission is clear - albeit its briefing has gone so quickly. The Soldier actually suspects he’s supposed to know everything about it already. Does happen sometimes. It’s only low bothering, having to come up with all the intel by himself - but he manages, given he’s the best. Easier when the handlers remember not to erase the useful memories prior to the mission, though.

Still, this isn’t how it generally goes - which is better. He prefers no memories and a full briefing. He hates digging in memories. Makes the time outside cryo even more longer, even more irritating - as if that was possible.

Surely, that’s why his handler - a tall man with perfect sense of overview and also cold-blooded, not like the obnoxious little fat guy who kept sweating and screaming - has told him not to try to remember anything from before. Copy that, sir.

As for now, success. Hopes he’ll keep it that way.

Mission’s simple: retrieve stolen files.

Mission’s difficulty: into a Soviet base.

Why is he supposed to already know everything? (And without digging?) He closes his eyes. He focuses on the name - “Soviet” - and looks for what’s related to it (and what’s still around and available, of course).

Memory retrieved.

He used to work for the Soviets. Quite a number of years, apparently. Right now, he could name ten different ex-handlers. Probably all dead. That’s good. Nothing’s worse than former handlers trying to retrieve him by using still-valid codewords. Makes interferences during mission.

Makes time outside cryo longer.

No longer time outside cryo for this mission, tough. The Soldier estimates: two hours to get in, steal these documents, get out. Then: find a place near the extraction point where he could sleep until Tuesday. Sleep is mind-blank making like cryo. Unless it’s worse than memory-digging. He hopes it will be the first option.

Which reminds him. Energy bars.

His energy levels are low but that’s a) normal - it’s because of the test they have him passed to prove he’s still the best (of course he is) - and b) not a current threat to the mission’s success. But in two days? Definitively.  

So one more time, he steps back into the plane and shoved whatever food he discovers into his pockets. Steps out.

He has now arrived for more than five minutes and still hasn’t moved to position.

That’s wrong.

This is weird. He’s the best and yet, he’s making all these mistakes, all these oversights. This doesn’t happen, usually. Well, it kind of does when he’s freshly out of cryo. But his handlers know that if it’s totally okay to make him go though some tests meant to injure him (injures mean he’s not the best - unacceptable) during this period of time, they better wait a day or two before sending him on a mission. Otherwise, dysfunctions can happen. And dysfunctions are mission interferences. Interferences...

The Soldier breaths in and out. So maybe that’s also a test. Maybe they have indeed just woken him up and given him this mission to see if he’s still the best. Of course. The Soldier does not know his age (who needs to?) or the day he came to purpose in life so he can’t properly determine how outdated he may be in this present time (since nobody bothers to keep count of his years in cryo, too).

However his handlers will discover that the Soldier is not outdated. He’s the best. He has this mission finished in one hour fifty minutes.

The asset moves.

 

The Soviet base is in sight within nine minutes. That’s a perfect distance between the landing area and the target. Plus, he has come by the south where there’s that little (snowy) hill from where he can lay flat and spy without being seen.

(Well okay, black clothes: not appropriated when on mission in Siberia.)

He activates his glasses and zooms in. The base is a plain rectangular building in plain not-hard-to-break-with-metal-arm concrete. He counts four watchtowers, not even placed at equal distance; a two-meters-high wall of barbed wires and at least ten men patrolling outside and inside, in the four directions. There’re also spotlights that do not seem to leave one inch of a shadow. One entrance only (heavily guard - four men in both sides). Three trucks come in and out by that road and their cargo - metal boxes of different sizes - is mostly left outside, piled up and arranged like some sort of maze. Bad idea. But good for him.

Night vision does not give him more intel. Good. Time to move, then.

 

The pattern of the trucks would be too time-consuming to figure out - assuming there’s even one. And waiting for a random one would be equally hazardous. So the Soldier planes a different approach.

He walks down the hidden hillside a few feet and buries a small (very small) bomb five inches under the surface. Then he moves to the right to almost the over side of the facility where the distance between two watchtowers is the greatest. He waits until the two soldiers patrolling together are near the tower on his left and there’s only one sentinel in front of him. He sets off the bomb.

The explosion makes a great noise - one could think the Soviet base wasn’t that quiet but it __was_  because the tundra has this fearsome ability to shut the hell up to whoever/whatever tries to disturb it - and the alarm signal starts almost immediately. Plus, the snow makes for a better-looking explosion. From where he stands, the Soldier can see a pretty neat smoke cloud rising. He smiles._

Diversion successful.

While the whole base has its attention focused on the explosion and soldiers are leaving their position to go out looking, the Soldier springs to his feet and rushes towards the wires. He shoots down the sentinel through it with his riffle - which happens to be a silencer too (current equipment: satisfying).

He only stops when he arrives at the barbed wires. He moves the riffle to his right hand and smashes the wires with his left.

 

OW.

 

Of course they are electrified. Why wouldn’t they be. How the fuck has he not think about it?

The metal arm quickly absorbs the electricity as soon as it is re-calibrated but the Soldier has have time to receive a stroke. It burns where the metal joins the flesh and it burns inside the brain. Injuries. That’s because of failure. (Failure means punishments.) The Soldier’s not the best. That’s wrong.  

Now the barrier has a hole on it big enough for the Soldier to go though without gymnastic moves requested. (Good. Less movements: less pain.)

When he’s on the other side, he quickly goes hiding between a pile of containers and drags the dead sentinel with him. It leaves blood on the frozen ground. Hopefully, with the night coming up, nobody would notice until tomorrow morning - and tomorrow morning, his mission will be long finished.

The Soldier squats while thinking about his next move. His left shoulder is still hot and tickling. What’s wrong with him? Why does he keep making mistakes?

The Soldier closes his eyes. He looks for the reason he’s not doing his job correctly.

His handler has told him not to look onto his recent past and he personally dislikes doing memory-digging but he needs answers if he wants to stop putting his mission success in jeopardize.

Memory retrieved.

Apparently, his former mission was an undercover mission. The faces and details are blurred but he can see the Tower he had to live in. Problem is: he can’t determine what exactly the mission was about - he can’t see himself sending any report to whoever was his handler at that time. Plus, something feels off. This undercover mission feels...

Natural.

And not painful-in-the-back-of-the-head. Which is absurd.

Its appears the mission was led for several months. Now, the Soldier knows that the pain-in-the-back-of-the-head grows unbearable after three days (which he’s why he’s out of here in one hour twelve minutes and trying to have blank-mind sleep until it’ll be cryo again). So he could not have last that long. Unless... He had a little cryo room to go into every night. What probably happened, then, is his handler getting him back every night, hearing his report and putting him under cryo for the night. Come to think of it: good idea.

Still, it’s not what he was looking for. Why does this past undercover mission make him feels like he’s gone rusted?

Memory retrieved.

The mission felt like warm around the heart. Weird. Was he standing in front of a fireplace all the way long? Doesn’t make sense. The Soldier tries to match this sensation. He’s nearly there - he can feels it.

Memory retrieved.

He has no record of previous warm-around-the-heart feeling but he has a record of a quiet-around-the-heart feeling that was something he used to feel when he was under the Soviet custody. Soviet time was a quiet time, he can remember it. Not not-painful of course (not to mention the pain-in-the-back-of-the-head) but quiet. Makes it feels less irritating to be outside cryo.

 _Still_ , it doesn’t explain a thing about his present situation.

The Soldier opens his eyes. He gives up. There is no apparent reason of why he’s making so many mistakes - maybe he is outdated after all - and he can’t stay here anymore without risking being spotted.

The Soldier winces. The pain-in-the-back-of-the-head has just stroke harder than ever. Why. Actually he knows why. It’s because he has been memory-digging. And he knows memory-digging means higher level of the pain-in-the-back.

Time-outside-cryo is just so awful.

 

The walls of the facility are made out of concrete which is a kind material for it allows itself to be destroyed by the metal arm quickly and easily. Unfortunately, that process creates lot of smokes and agitation. The sun may be down by now, his diversion is also over and soldiers are regaining their positions and no way anybody would see him make a hole in their neatly plain concrete wall.

Alternative option: the doors. He’s on the eastern side of the building, facing what looks like a shed or a shack (except it’s concrete, not wood). Anyways, there’s a door on his right but he will have to stand in plain sight for one of the tower. Meaning, within its fire range. Not good but acceptable risk. He zooms on the door with his glasses. The lock is common. A punch in it with the metal arm will easily do the job.

He hears footsteps - snow crunching under boots, an oddly familiar sound and even more oddly: a calming sound.

The Soldier moves. He rushes to the door, slams the edge of his left hand on the lock and kicks the door open. The moment he steps in, he hears shouts and the first gunshots. He immediately shut the door and with his laser cutter melts down the lock so they won’t be able to follow him this way. Wait, laser cutter? Why hasn’t he used it on the lock in the first place?

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The pain-in-the-back grows stronger to the point that his hands are shaking. The Soldier moans. He wants cryo. He doesn’t want picture of a sunset over a city still asleep with a hot mug in his hand and a insufferably familiar presence next to him.

Cryo. That’ll make him going.

The Soldier looks around. The corridor is dark. He activates his night vision. Not better. It really is just a block of concrete. There’re some boxes on the floor but apart from that, nothing. They didn’t even bother to put up a coating. He runs to the other side of the corridor. There’s a metal door. It’s closed but he can hear heavy footsteps on the other side. He counts three men.

He opens the door, fires with the riffle. Two men go down immediately but the third one tries to get away. The Soldier has to take a step outside the dark corridor to shoot him down.

He looks up. Here’re the vents. He reached up with his left arm and removes the grid. He put the riffle away, across his back, jumps and snickers into the vents. He replaces the grid behind him while his right hand retrieves a knife from his sleeve.

He moves quickly in the vents. Every time he passes near a grid that happens to lead into a new room (and not another empty corridor), he looks down with attention. Obviously, the files he’s supposed to take back will be in the office of the higher-ranked person operating inside this base. He closes his eyes. Maybe during his Soviet time, he had been in that base. Or a similar one.

Memory retrieved.

The walls and the disposition of the men and the stuff appear even more familiar. He used to walk in those kind of corridors. Alas, every facility had a different construction plan and he had not been in this one before. Too bad. He’ll keep looking, then.

 

Finally, a room appears more cosy and neatly furnished than the others he has seen. May as well try.

He waits for a whole minute, trying to identify someone coming in his direction. The X-ray vision shows a empty corridor - there’s only one door. Good.

He removes the grid and jumps down. He leaves the grid on a red padded chair next to a bookshelf (highly valuable considering it’s protected by a glass) and moves forward. The desk stands on the other half of the reddish carpet with yellow patterns he has landed on. There’s drawers covering the corner behind the desk and its comfortable chair. The Soldier goes behind the desk. The laptop is shut. The Soldier turns it on while opening the first drawer. Since he’s apparently outdated, he’s not even sure he could hack it so he focuses on the full-paper folders inside the drawer.

“<Don’t move.>”

The Russian words tinkles familiarly inside his head. The Soldier looks up and stares at the soldier on the doorstep, holding his gun with both of his hands. The Soldier still has his knife in his right hand - not the most powerful between the two of them but still as skilled as the left one. Plus, he can reach out for a gun within a second. The Soldier thinks of about three different ways to distract the man and five others ways to put him down. His eyes go back to the folders. Maybe, instead of killing him, he could use him to learn about the specific location of the files he’s after.

Good plan.

The Soldier turns slowly to trick the other into believing he’s surrendering while he’s in fact going to perforate his hand with his knife. But before he could actually do that, half a dozen men - heavy armed - stomp onto the room. There’s an officer with them who looks at the Soldier with both wide and angry eyes - a strange combination (and a difficult one to make, too).

“<Are you the Winter Soldier?>” asks the man in Russian.

Correct. “Winter Soldier” is his codename. The name of the asset he is. That’s his purpose in life. To be honest, he’s not supposed to give away that codename to anyone. But if the man already knows it, it means he knows the asset. Means possible handler. Or possible source of intel. Either way, no punishment involved if he confirms.

“Да” he says.

Although he still hasn’t let go of his knife, he rises both of his hands above his head. The Soldier may be the best, with seven men aiming at him with riffles and within three feet from him, it’s really unlikely that he could get out of here alive.

Not to mention that, even if he does, more will come and he will never have the time to check the folders and find the one he needs.

Wiser to _actually_  surrender.

Also allows to have time to make another plan.

The men circle him. One hits him on the head until he drops his knife. They don’t trust him to lower his arms - clever, he has too many other weapons on him - and push him towards the door by poking him in the back with the end of their barrel.

When he’s about to cross the threshold, he turns and stares at the officer who shakes his head, smiling.

“<Wait till they know you’re back.>” he says to him with apparent delight “<It’s been so long. Where’s the hell have you been all this time, eh, Isha?>”

The Soldier turns back.

The corridors he walks down feel familiar.

The men and the guns feel familiar.

Now the name - codename? - feels familiar too. It carries a faint reminder of the quiet-around-the-heart feeling. Even more, the pain-in-the-back-of-the-head has decreased.

This is wrong in every way. This is absolutely not how the mission was supposed to go. The Soldier has thought he was only outdated and rusted for his body. But that’s not even it.

His mind feels.

Not familiar anymore.


	8. Seventeen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brooklyn, 1934. It's Bucky's birthday and he and Steve decide to spend the day together.

The door slammed open and the boy dashed into the small apartment.

“Rogers!” he shouted “get your ass of your stupid bed, we’re going out!”

The boy who had just spoken looked around him with a confident smirk. He knew where the room of his friend was - it wasn’t difficult when said apartment had so few rooms, all of which having their only door opening to the hall slash living-room - but he wanted to appreciate the familiar feeling of the house.

His friend’s room was right in front of him. However, he could not make a step further as a woman suddenly appeared, rubbing her hands on her cloth. Albeit no red came colouring her cheeks, she smiled brightly at him.

“James!” she said in a false angry voice “Is this how you mother educated you?”

The boy turned red and stroked his hair in a uneasy gesture.

“Sorry ma’am, I-”

Before he could go on, a weak voice came out of the bedroom, muffled by the presence of the closed door.

“Buck?”

Instantly, Bucky rushed into the bedroom to find Steve sitting on his bed but still wrapped up in his sheets. He looked pale and tired - but smiling. With one stride, Bucky was at his friend’s side and stroking his blond hair. Steve grumbled but eventually giggled.

“Come on punk! Today’s not the day for bein’ sick. I said we’re going out!” and he took him by the wrist to pull him out of his bed. Steve was already dressed up but since he had remained in his bed for most of the morning, his clothes were wrinkled. So Barnes gentlemanly put the shirt back into the trousers and re-adjusted his braces.

“Here! All good-lookin’ and ready to go!”

“Jerk” Steve replied after a cough “you’re gonna have me killed.”

Bucky kept helping Steve dressing himself up - meaning he started piling up warm clothes on him, adding his own coat despite Steve’s punky complains.

“Nah, I’m settin’ ya free. Come on!” he said again. His voice sounded like a whimper. “The sun’s already high!”

Steve had no choice but surrender to his best friend’s enthusiasm. When the two of them left the room for the hall, his mother, Sarah was waiting for them, holding something square in her hands. Despite it being covered up by a cloth, it smelt so good no mistake could be made about what it was.

“Happy birthday” Sarah said to Bucky while handing out the cake to him.

Bucky blushed and took the package as if it was some kind of priceless treasure - in a way, it certainly was.

“Th- Thanks ma’am!”

Sarah smiled at him.

“Watch over my boy, will ya?”

He strongly nodded to her - both of them ignoring Steve’s offended “Mum!” in the background.

“Always, ma’am.”

And with that, they were out in the streets.

 

***

 

While they were walking down the alley, heading to the city’s centre, Steve unfolded his scarf and sighed in relief. Of course, Bucky immediately tried to put it back on but the little guy fought back.

“I’m hot Buck!”

“But you’re sick!”

“But it’s not even _that_  cold!”

The brunet sighed and gave up. Steve also unbuttoned the top of his coat - Bucky’s coat as a matter of fact. His friend gave him a sideways glance but stayed silent. At least, he had kept his hat jammed on his ears.

They didn’t walk at a brisk pace - quit the contrary in fact - for Bucky was careful not to wear Steve out in vain (guy couldn’t climb down some stairs without risking an asthma attack).

“So” said Barnes after a while “what should we do?”

Steve shrugged.

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

“Come on Stevie! I’m a adult now-”

“You’re definitively not.”

“-so it’s time for me to take full advantage of life!”

They passed by a small coffee. Amongst serious young men with their hair pulled back and their moustache shining, bended over the newspapers, there were some old ladies sipping quietly their beverage and, more interesting, some young ladies, too. Bucky attached his eyes on them and didn’t take them away to the point he almost ended up walking backwards. Finally, he turned to Steve again.

“We should go on a date. It’s been a long time since-”

The blond sighed loudly, causing him to stop. They both stopped. Bucky glared at Steve and Steve glared back at Bucky.

“Go if you want to” the blond said to his friend “but don’t involve me in it.” He lowered his voice when he added: “It’s no use at all for me, anyway.”

Bucky tilted his head to his right while looking genuinely saddened.

“Oh, Steve.”

Steve wouldn’t look at him in the eyes. With a sigh, he put his arm around his shoulders and shook him up a little before resuming walking.

“Alright. Let’s go to this new exhibit. You’ll love it, I heard they even got some painted shit from the Sixteenth Century.”

He sniggered without waiting for Steve to start lecturing him about the nobility of art and how he should respect it.

“And after that” he interrupted him “to our place. How does that sound?”

While trying to look like he was sulking, Steve nonetheless smiled.

“That sounds really fine, Buck.”

 

***

 

Their “place” was a rooftop, Bucky’s to be specific. They had to climb the fire exit and Bucky always went first so he could pulled Steve up at the end. They sat on the edge of the roof, their legs hanging over the gap. Brooklyn lay at their feet like a quiet sea. Nobody around to bully them; it always had been the two of them only.

Over the years, they had come here quite often. When Steve would have been bullied by some shits or dumped by his last date or when it would have been Bucky (one kind happening more frequently than the other) they would climb up to that roof and spend time in each other’s company. They didn’t even need to talk. Steve would sketch and Bucky read or watch the city changing as the sun moved across the sky.

That day, while Steve took out his notebook and his pen, Bucky unwrapped the cake and with the knife he got for his previous birthday, began to cut out thick slices of it. Though, as soon as the first slice had been cut, he shoved it in his mouth and let out a pleased groan.

“You ma’ sure knows how to cook them!”

Steve had already started to draw and didn’t answer. Bucky got back at his cutting and when half the cake lay in pieces, he took one slice and handed it over to his friend, waiting patiently until the blond eventually noticed it and took it. He chewed it absent-minded, his pen carrying on his sketch idea on the low-quality paper. Bucky ate two more slices of the cake - it was a simple pound cake but Sarah knew how to make the most of her poor supplies and thus it felt truly extraordinary. Felt truly like a birthday’s cake.

The brunet stood a few moments, just staring at the city. Then he started to feel bored and tried to glanced at Steve’s drawing above his shoulders but the other squirmed as he tried to get away.

“Don’t look!”

Steve held his notebook as far away as he could but Bucky was almost on his laps, reaching for it and - well - they both knew who was the strongest and also had the longest arms.

“Just lemme see!” Bucky pressed him playfully.

But Steve was struggling vigorously.

“No!”

It was very often that Steve would get so adamant about not showing his drawing to him that he eventually gave up - but turned away and sulk. Steve didn’t even pay attention to him and resumed drawing.

A few minutes went by during which nothing could be heard but the pen screeching on the paper. Finally, Bucky spoke again, his eyes lost in the distance.

“They said the war’s coming.”

He glanced at Steve.

“Hum” the blond said without making it clear whether the subject interested him or not at all.

He was so focused he hadn’t noticed his scarf had completely unfolded itself and was therefore hanging loosely on his shoulders, not covering his neck anymore. Acting cautiously so as to not disturb him, Barnes wrapped it again around his pinky neck (pinky because the wind had already taken advantage of that chink in the armour). He sat back but his eyes remained riveted on his friend.

“They said Hitler wants the war.”

This time, Steve shrugged.

“You think it’s coming?” the brunet asked him.

Steve stopped drawing and sat up to look at him.

“I don’t know, Buck. Who knows the future?”

Bucky stared at him, at his eyes, blue of the purest blue. Although Steve’s voice was constantly weak because of asthma and high-pitched like a girl’s, Bucky always though it sounded profound. Like the ocean. Yeah, Steve was his fucking ocean - and he had sworn to himself a long time ago that he’d never let anyone or anything trouble it. (Easier said than done with a punk like this but whatever.)

“That’s not the point, Steve.”

Steve raised one eyebrow.

“What is it, then?”

Bucky tried to smile but failed and looked down at his hand to hide it.

“What if it comes?” he said finally in a voice so low Steve nearly didn’t hear it. “What if the war comes. What we will do?”

Steve shrugged again but this time, he added a frown.

“Well, we’ll fight” he answered as if it was obvious.

Bucky had a moment of pure blank. Then he chuckled, raised his head and gently punched him on the shoulder. Steve whined but smiled back.

“Yeah, of course, you’ll fight!” Bucky exclaimed. “You punk!”

He shook his head with a slight smile. But as soon as Steve had returned to his sketch, his face clouded over and he watched him from below, feeling his heart sink. He let several seconds out before speaking again, softly:

“You know they won’t let you.”

Steve stiffened.

“Then, I’ll make then” he replied gritting his teeth.

Bucky kept staring at him but Steve would only look at his notebook page slowly turning grey. His hand moved almost angrily.

Bucky wouldn’t even ask how Steve planned to make the Army accept him - with that much of stubbornness in so little body, who knew what he could achieve - because he didn’t want to risk letting Steve see how much he was worrying. The blond would easily begin shouting at him for being over-protecting. That was true, though: Bucky’s only wish was to protect him. Steve’s body was so weak, so fragile; staying alive was a daily fight for him. That was why Bucky desired for him not to have to fight something else - that something else being as easily bullies or a war.

The brunet slightly scowled. There were so many things he was dying to say - but couldn’t. Like how he was willing to fight for Steve no matter how long, how hard or how cruel it was going to be - if only that meant he would keep him safe - but on the other hand how much he hated the sheer though of fighting for something that wouldn’t be Steve and was as stupid and vague as fighting his country would be.

Bucky wasn’t afraid of the war; he was afraid of being separated from Steve, unable to protect him.

And also, yeah, being ordered by strangers to kill foreign strangers wasn’t either an idea he was specially fond of.

“Buck? You’re alright?”

He looked up and saw Steve mildly concerned. He smiled at him reassuringly.

“Actually, I was thinking” he said. “I’m turning seventeen today and I was born on ninety-seventeen.”

Steve’s face lighted up when he smiled back.

“Yeah, that’s weird! It must happen...”

He frowned and bit his lower lip while trying to do the maths.

“I guess it’ll happen if you’re born between ninety-one and ninety-ninety. Okay, no. It won’t work if you’re born on the century’s first year. Wait, no-”

Bucky was already giggling. Steve looked offended.

“Don’t laugh at me, jerk!”

Bucky patted him on the head.

“Yeah, yeah. I guess that’s true what they said about artists: they’re misunderstood people.”

“I hate you. You’re the worst.”

The brunet busted into laugher again and Steve couldn’t keep his offended face for much longer either. They stood to watch the sun going down, illuminating the sky with vivid orange and reddish colours.

“Buck?” Steve asked in a hushed tone.

The brunet turned to face him.

“Yeah?”

Steve fiddled with his notebook, looking nervous.

“Do you want to see what I’ve done?”

Bucky shrugged and let out a “yeah, why not” in a totally disinterested voice, as equally disinterested as he was, in fact, totally interested in seeing it. Steve ripped carefully the double page he had been drawing on off his notebook and hand it to his friend while being unable to keep himself from blushing.

Bucky looked down at the drawing. It was them. The two of them, sitting on that specific rooftop, talking and smiling at each other.

“I know it’s a ridiculous gift-” Steve began but Bucky cut him off.

“No, it’s not. It’s beautiful. I love it, Stevie. It’s the best gift ever. Thank you.”

Steve looked surprised at first but then his smile made him shine brighter than the sun.

“You’re welcome, Buck! Happy Seventeenth birthday!”

Steve looked so - well - cute, that Bucky couldn’t help but drag him into a tight hug. Maybe it was also because he didn’t want his little friend to see his tears - he suddenly felt so happy. When they parted, Steve spoke again, in a softer voice.

“You know, I don’t thing the war is coming.” He smiled shyly. “So you don’t need to worry, okay?”

Actually, Bucky felt like he was going to deal with more than just worries and his heart hurt a bit when he thought about it. But for now, he decided, he should listen to Steve. Enjoy the moment. They were here, safe, unarmed and more importantly: together.

“Yeah... And if it does come, I guess I’ll just have to watch your back when you’ll be kicking their asses.”

Steve’s face lighted up.

“Exactly. No matter what happens, you’re stuck with me, buddy. Till the end of the line.”

“Aw, man, I wonder what I’ve done to deserve such punishment.”

“Jerk.”

“Punk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! I hope you're fine! Your kudos make me keep going but still, I'm wondering if what I'm writing is anything near enjoyable?


	9. Daybreak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While making his way out, the Winter Soldier reunites with Pietro, another sleeper. Together, they intend to finish his mission, but they're running out of time: the facility is about to be blown up.

The Soldier’s fingers are restless, taping on his knee. He sits on the hard couch in the otherwise empty cell.

Dawn is close.

He has spent the night - at least, what remained of it - in this cell. At first, he has tried to find a quick way out but he has settled down after thinking about it a bit more. The fact is that they know who he is. So they’ll expect him to try to break out immediately. So, because he won’t be doing that, they’ll be surprised and they’ll relax the surveillance.

It worked. At first, there was one guard next to the door and another one patrolling and bypassing his cell every five minutes. Now, the guards are out in the corridor - surely playing dice and drinking vodka as shown in one of his memories from his time under the Soviet custody - and perk at him every ten minutes. That is for one point.

The second one is that he figured he could use a break.

The Soldier does not take “breaks” during missions - “break” does not even mean something for him, the only important rest he could get (and hope for) is after mission the cryo. Besides, he does not need a break. He’s the best. However, as shown by his recent capture, he is also rusted for the moment. He needs to take things slower. His body is objectively exhausted. He calculated: he’ll break out just before dawn when the night lighting will be off but the daylight will still be dim. Makes three hours of sleep. Sufficient. He sleeps.

He regrets it.

The Soldier knows two kind of sleep - beside cryo which isn’t sleep but rest. The first sleep usually happens when he’s been on mission for hours and to the point he can’t move his left arm anymore due to the exhaustion. That first sleep is the best because it provides blank-mind energy retrieving. The second one, however, is awful.

He dreams.

There are pictures in his head. Former missions. Former handlers. The pictures often come with the sensations. Sensation of burn, of pain, of whatever punishment he’s recalling that way. So, obviously, this night is of second sleep. The Soldier does not dream about pain but of things that seem quiet, nice. Like being in a couch with a beer in one hand. Or doing a strange exercise involving a tiny yellow ball and rackets. When he wakes up - and he wakes up because the pain-in-the-back-of-the-head has become unbearable - he finds his mind even more confused. Pain is easy to explain: it comes from punishment and punishment comes from mission failing. But these pictures... they can’t be explained. There are no missions involved with them. Which is impossible (the Soldier is never put out of cryo unless there’s a mission).

Also, there’s that warm-around-the-heart feeling again.

To put it in a nutshell, sleeping was a great idea for his body and a huge mistake for his head.

The Soldier reaches out for his energy bars stored in his numerous pockets. They have taken away from him his riffle, his knives, his guns, his goggles and even his mask. But they didn’t touch the food. That’s good because his body is starved. Which is good in itself, too, because putting things in his mouth distracts him from the memories.

Now, he can think about an escape plan.

 

Getting out of the cell is no difficulty - he’s the best and for Stalin’s sake, that’s just a lock, not even electrified or some shit. The first problem is the two guards standing outside the door; the Soldier is not only breaking out, he still has a mission to complete and this mission requires discretion. He can’t let one guard raise the alarm.

He waits in front of the door for four minutes. Then, when the guard opens it up to check on him - these guys are dumb; you don’t let a prisoner that strong unattended for ten minutes straight - he punches him in the stomach so hard he’s literally thrown at his comrade. The man tries to catch him which consequently occupies both of his hands and therefore prevents him from raising the alarm. Good.

The Soldier jumps and punches.

With the two men down, the path is clear. After taking their weapons, the Soldier drags them into his cell, locks it up and then does the same thing with the door before finally starting walking up the corridor, looking all around him to find the possible cameras - in order to hide from them. The corridor quickly led him into a big, over-furnished room. The room is objectively a mess. There are wires running on the ground from and to everywhere, there are shelves on every wall, there are tables crumbling with files and little medicine knives, there is a big empty glass tube...

There’s a chair.

The Soldier freezes. His heart starts beating faster, he breathes heavily and sweat ran down his spine. This is the danger feeling. This is also the pain-is-coming feeling. He knows the chair. What it does. Sometimes, when the mission has lasted for too long and the pain-in-the-back has grown too strong and the memories too confusing and distracting, the chair helps to clear up the mind before cryo. It is welcomed, then. But the chair is also used to bring him back from cryo. That makes it hated.

Now, what’s the chair doing down here?

Best guess: they want to reprogram him. Dammit. Right now is not the time: he has a mission going on. Though, of course, if the reprogramming goes well, he won’t remember he failed it and since he will go under new custody, they’ll probably won’t punish him for that failure. Still, it’s annoying. He’s the best, he always finishes his missions. Not to mention that he doesn’t want to have potential handlers all over the world. That would make a real bunch of mission interference. Less time in cryo.

He really needs to get out of here.

 

He keeps his eyes on the chair, as if it was a enemy with a gun. Suddenly, he hits something and he turns immediately, raising his riffle. But that’s only another giant tube. He frowns because the giant tube is... Well, because it is cryo. That’s a proper cryo chamber he has here, right under his nose - or in front of it, whatever. How has he not recognized it in the first place? The cryo chamber is as empty as the first one. The Soldier looks on his left and sees that the third one is not.

There is someone in cryo.

The Soldier comes closer, mildly curious. He tries to look beyond the glass and the ice covering it. His eyes go down to the control panel. There is no name obviously, only vitals recording. The Soldier closes his eyes. He knows he has intel on this, somewhere. He asks his mind.

Memory retrieved.

He can decipher the numbers. The numbers mean that the man inside is in pretty bad shape. He isn’t actually damaged but the people in charge had completely disregarded him these last few years; if it continues that way, they’ll never be able to wake him up ever again. The Soldier keeps staring at the numbers and also at the blurry figure. Something attracts him to it. It’s the face. The face seems...

“Pietroushka.”

Suddenly, the Soldier is on the move. He doesn’t even know why. Well, he kind of does - and he recognizes it’s not because of a mission imperative (that’s wrong). It’s because of the feeling, the quiet-around-the-heart feeling. Unlike the warm-around-the-heart feeling that makes him uncomfortable, this feeling means time outside cryo but mission going well so not so bad. Even more, the Soldier decides he wants that feeling to last longer. He recognizes that it is linked to the cryogenized person.

That’s why he’s waking him up.

 

The Soldier only needs to close his eyes and think about the waking up procedure - and pictures start popping in his head.

Memory retrieved.

It was expected that he would know how to do it, since he had often watched over the process. Even though what he really knows is how it’s done, not what to do. But since there are not scientists around, that’s gonna be entirely up to him and his photographic memories. It takes time, obviously, but strangely enough, nobody comes around.

He defrozed the chamber, have the glass rise to the ceiling, catches Pietro’s body before he falls to the ground, makes him sit in the chair and activates the chair. Pietro’s screams ring annoyingly in his ears. While he waits for the process to be finished, he keeps an eye on the doors. Now, with all that noise, they are definitively coming. That’s why, for one thing, he’ll use the chair the minimal time required - the second thing being that he just needs Pietro to wake up, not to be conditioned for a mission. When that time is up, he stops the chair and unstraps Pietro. That’s when the boy looks around and squints at him.

“Isha...?”

“Come on, let’s move” he replies.

He has already the air vents’ grid removed. He helps the boy and they climb into the tiny metallic corridors. They walk on all fours for a little while until they arrive at a junction with one way opening to a locker room. They take a break.

The Soldier stares at Pietro. His thin blond hair are wet and dripping on his forehead. His blue eyes are darkened by the lack of light but he can remember he has the fairest eyes of them all. He also remember he had freckles due to his young age. Does he still have? It’s hard to tell, in here, and to know how many years have passed.

Pietro stares back at him and while he’s shivering because of the thawing process, his voice is steady.

“Isha, what is the mission?” he asks.

The Soldier frowns. He’s finally thinking about what he has just done. The quiet feeling has told him to wake up his companion to ensure that it wouldn’t stop. But what is he supposed to do with him now?

Well, Pietroushka is a Soldier, too. That means he will help on the mission. Good.

Keeping his voice as low as possible, the Soldier debriefs him. Then he gave him weapons. Pietro is not wearing any gear so he can hardly put a knife in his boot and a gun in his belt. The Soldier gives him his second riffle. Then they start moving again. Pietro knows the building and leads the way. They pass by corridors and rooms, all empty. Where is everyone?

Finally, they met someone. A guard is running to the corridor’s end. Pietroushka, as ordered so by him, jumps out of the vents and knocks him down. Then he looks up at the Soldier who nods in agreement - that was a test. Pietro briefly smiles and that’s confusing. But he shakes it off and joins him. While the boy is pilfering the man’s gear, the Soldier picks up the walkie-talkie.

“<Report.>” he says.

After a few seconds, an angry voice comes out.

“<Where’s the fuck are you? Did you see Youri and Boris? Are you with them? Nevermind, just get out of here! They’re gonna bomb the building any minute now!>”

The Soldier glances at Pietro.

“I did not know the building was meant to be destroyed” says the young man.

“Me neither” he replies.

He turns off the radio. But after a brief moment of hesitation, he turns it on again and places it on his belt. Later on, that could give them useful intel. For now, they have a mission to finish.

The two men start running through the corridors, to the office room that the Soldier was in prior to his capture. Pietro has confirmed to him that it is the only other room where all the files are being conserved - the first one being the archive room, in the basement, where they come from and thus is too big and messy to even think about going back to. Now that they know why there is nobody around, they can run freely, without trying to hide from cameras.

Also explains why nobody tried to stop him when he was waking up Pietroushka.

They arrive at the door. The Soldier kicks it open and prepares to shoot. There’s no one inside, though - as expected. He puts his riffle across his back and moves towards the drawers. Pietro has stopped on the threshold.

“Hum, Isha” he asks sheepishly “what’s HYDRA?”

The Soldier stops - and frowns. He realizes he has assumed that Pietroushka would know. He himself can recall so many missions under HYDRA’s custody, he has thought that they had all pass under their control. Apparently, it was only him. He almost closes his eyes before realizing that he doesn’t want more intel/memory about it. He opens his mouth then shuts it. He takes a fold of paper and quickly draws HYDRA’s symbol. Pietro examines it closely then nods.

They start looking.

It takes time and they aren’t even sure that what they’re looking for is actually there. The radio crackles a first time, calling out the three guys they have knock off (it’s interesting to note that, despite being worried about them, none of their comrades is willing to go back inside the facility to help them) then a second time to call out for anyone who would still be inside. Obviously, there is at least someone but the Winter Soldier is not going to give his position away. (They already know he has escaped and surely has assumed that he has made his way out of the building - he kind of wishes that has happened.)

Meanwhile, Pietro has gone looking for data backup (because the computer isn’t there anymore, unsurprisingly). He doesn’t find any but the Soldier does find what he’s looking for. The HYDRA files the Soviet managed to steal when they had to evacuate the Alaska’s facility under HYDRA’s fire, less than three years ago.

When he mentions this, Pietroushka tells him that the Soviet Union doesn’t exist anymore. Strangely, he feels that he did already know. Is this from the undercover mission again? How could he have learned so much during this mission and, at the same time, not have done any mission at all?

“Isha?”

He looks up at the boy. The radio has gone silent for too long, which can only mean that the Russian soldiers are already far away which, in return, can only mean that the bombing is impending.

“Let’s move Pietroushka.”

He nods.

They’re about to leave the room when the Soldier noticed his gear, lying on the chair next to the books shelves. Why did the officer put it there, he has no clue and couldn’t care less. He takes back his goggles and his masks and hands over his knives and guns to Pietro. Then they rushed out.

They try to follow the same path the Soldier wen on when he came into the office for the first time. It’s difficult as the vents don’t always align with the walls or the rooms. But eventually, they reach the metallic door that leads into the dark corridor. As Pietro opens it, they hear a rumbling sound that only one thing could make. Planes.

They can’t but share a single look before the first bombs hit the building.

 

The whole think is shaken up from top to bottom. They stumble on their feet before the Soldier shoved Pietro in the corridor.

“Move! Quick!”

They ran to the other side of it where they find the exit door with the melted lock. It takes sixteen seconds for the metal arm to overcome the obstacle before they can hurl themselves outside.

First thing they notice is how bright everything is. The Soldier has entered the facility at nightfall and now it is daybreak. Everything baths in the sunlight with the snow making it looks like a golden sea.

Then, a second row of bombs hit its target and they are thrown into the air as the corridor they just walked in explodes. The Soldier feels something hard and then warm in the back of his head and right afterwards, it all goes black.

 

“Isha! Isha! Черт! Get up for Putin’s sake!”

He blinks. He can see the slim figure of the boy standing over him.

“Pietroushka? What-?”

“Isha. Get. Up.”

Pietro is holding out his hand. The Soldier grabs it and gets back on his feet. The facility is now joyfully burning and the flames reflect on their faces and the melting snow. He feels dizzy. He touches the back of his head with his fingertips and then looks stupidly at them dripping blood.

“Isha.”

He doesn’t hear him. His head - his whole body - feels numb.

“Soldat.”

He flinches at the word. He recognizes it and knows he has to act subsequently - to comply - but he also can feel a desire to fight it back. He doesn’t know...

“We have to go” says Pietro in a softer voice.

He shakes his head and clear his mind.

“Yeah, you’re right.”

They cut through the barbed wire and make their exit, heading towards the extraction point.

As they’re running at their regular super-soldier pace, he can’t help but feel that something has gone off. Maybe it’s the sun reflecting on the thin layer of ice and consecutively blinding him or maybe it’s something else. Like the fact that he doesn’t know anymore why he’s doing all this.

Or where’s Steve.


	10. Furnace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flash-back to that one mission during the Cold War in which the Soldier found a new Steve without looking for it.

His name was Pietrov Maria Manouskov. They called him Pietroushka.

He was the last one to enter the Winter Soldiers program. When the Soldier - the first one, the best of them all - saw him for the first time, something felt squeezy around his heart but not in a unpleasant way. Like a feeling of both expectation and familiarity. The Soldier closed his eyes for a memory retrieving but none happened. Still, this fair bunch of hair, these ocean eyes and the naive, quiet smile remained familiar to him.

“This one won’t survive” stated Dimitri.

The squad was outside, sat in the snow drinking vodka near the facility and peeking at the laboratory through a dirty window. The Soldier rose his head towards Dimitri and the latter looked ashamed.

“Is he Isha?”

The three others also turned to him. He was their leader and as such, they respected him more than themselves - on some days, maybe more than Staline himself. The Soldier breathed out quietly, watching the air turn to cloud and feeling the icing wind on his chin for once lacking his usual mask - he didn’t need it on daily routine.

He didn’t answer.

The guys maybe thought that it was supposed to sound like a positive answer when, really, he had no idea. He was able to say that he didn’t dislike looking at the boy but that didn’t mean he cared about him.

The Soldier only care about the mission and the time left before cryo.

 

As it turned out, the boy survived.

At least, he made it past the first injection - the worst one. Strangely, it didn’t affect him a lot on a physical level; he still looked slim and lanky. Dimitri made fun of him again but the Soldier’s body made a smile of satisfaction.

Pietroushka started training with them the day right after the injection. Soon, the Soldier knew what would be up with the kid. His candidness was such that he suspected that they would never put him on the chair. That they would never even need it.

The boy believed his handlers. And more than his handlers, he believed in the Soldier. Isha was the world for him.

Sure, he did ask a lot of questions - so much questions, for Staline’s sake! - but he never doubted his purpose in life or the purpose of his missions. His questions were always about what Isha was teaching him. After the Soldier, Dimitri was the best - strong, precise, would get the job quickly and efficiently done - but Pietroushka wanted to be a good student and nearly managed to catch up with him. This amused the Soldier. It was kind of cute, having this boy following him around and accepting any training to the point the Soldier himself wasn’t sure he wasn’t killing him.

As the next injections followed, Pietrov remained the same. The men in the Winter Soldiers program had to receive an injection at least once a year. In the first month, however, it would be five times in all. The Soldier was the only one who didn’t need it. Obviously, when the Soviets got their hand on him (and after cleaning his mind with the chair) they asked him about his serum and he gave them everything he could. He did memory-digging for them, to let them know how __his__  first months went. However they never were able to replicate Zola’s serum (let alone Erskine’s) - thus the need for regular injections. The first one shorted through the candidates - within an hour they were either dead or stronger. But the next five injections weren’t innocuous either. The death was only slower. The soldier’s body would tire out under this nearly inhuman metabolism until they would die of exhaustion due to their very existence.

So, even if Dimitri was bitter about it, at the end of the month, it was clear that Pietroushka was now part of their team.

 

The Winter Soldiers only trained together. The Soldier taught them how to fight, how to kill, how to blend in. They spent all their time together, never seeing anyone else because fights would always ensue, fights that would be deadly for everyone else (which was why they had their own dormitory and were separated from the others within the base itself).

To the Soldier’s disappointment, however, cryo wouldn’t come very often. Far less times than it did when he was under other’s custody - according to the memory retrieved. At least, time outside cryo was made bearable because of their very squad. The six of them understood the role they had in the world and could fight and drink without bitching about it. Sometimes, it would even become funny when Dimitri would be so drunk he would put up a fight with Pietroushka - and Pietroushka would beat the shit out of him because the boy held his liquor way more than his elder. For the Soldier’s body, it made a quiet-around-the-heart feeling.

Despite them spending all this time together, few were the missions when their handlers would actually send two of them (mostly because they didn’t need to). The Winter Soldiers had obviously very little freedom of choice but when it came to assigning the missions, they were allowed to talk. As failure was unacceptable, they sometimes would prefer to admit their weakness - and go on the chair - rather than take on a mission they knew they could fail. The Soldier also had also a final say. After all, he knew better than anyone what they were capable of. But when times came when two Soldiers were needed on a mission, Pietroushka would surprise everyone and nearly win a free-ticket for the chair when he’d actually asked for what he __wanted__  - which was being paired with Isha. Usually, the Soldier gave these missions to Dimitri and Grisha - he had noticed the two almost worked better together than alone - but one time, maybe it was the blond hair or the blue eyes or the tranquil smile, he decided to grant Pietrov’s request and assigned the mission to the both of them. Pietroushka was so happy, his body put up a smile that startled the Soldier when, at the same time, giving him a stronger quiet-around-the-heart feeling.

That was weird but mission first.  

 

The mission went horribly wrong. They were sent to a Slavic country to eliminate an American ambassador. It was especially tricky for the American dude had a hell of a protecting squad and the URSS was currently trying to force the country itself into its alliance. So they had to kill a man the most stealthiest way possible while the dude was a walking American firework. One wrong step and every one on the planet knew.

At first, the Soldier didn’t think it was a difficult mission - it wasn’t a easy one, obviously, but he was confident enough in his skills.

He had Pietrov go undercover and infiltrate the security squad of the American dude and follow him for a whole week. After that, the Soldier had came up with a plan. Some undetectable poison and a “accidental” fire. The Soldier himself would hide in a tree, one shadow among the others in the night, near the dude’s mansion to erase anyone who would have seen Pietroushka that day.

The plan was great. It was supposed to work. Yet, something went wrong.

Awfully wrong.

He didn’t even had visual on Pietroushka yet when the Soldier started getting shot. He promptly shot back two of the snipers and jumped down his tree before rushing to the mansion. He killed two more guards in the yard before he could access the sash door that opened to the living-room. The glass had already a hole in it so he didn’t think twice before crashing into the room.

There, he could see the problem: the American dude was indeed dead but not because of the poison. He had been stabbed in the heart and the stomach. Meanwhile, Pietroushka was fighting one of the bodyguard. The Soldier immediately rose his riffle but Pietrov slipped beneath the guy and hammered his knife in his neck. The guy fell down on the floor with a loud thud.

The Soldier quickly walked to Pietrov and pulled out his mask, ordering him to explain what happened and why he hadn’t followed the plan. The boy looked at him with confusion - and regret? - but before he could talk, the fire happened.

The explosion occurred in the second floor and blew the ceiling away. One floor worth of furniture ran down on them and with it, the fire itself. Soon, carpets and precious ancients desks were joyfully burning. The smoke was thick and gray. Pietrov started to suffocate and the Soldier put his mask on again. He grabbed his wrist and pushed him towards the large windows. Alas, before they could get out, the wall holding said windows collapsed.

Well. The others doors it was.

They turned on their heels and rushed to the living-room exit to found that the doors were blocked. Or, rather, had been locked. At this point, the Soldier’s brain was screaming in confusion, unable to determine if the mission’s failure was caused by his incompetence or if a third part were to blame. Because it fucking looked like they had been played.

Still, even two massive, wooden-carved doors couldn’t hold back two super soldiers. They made a breach and stomped inside the already-on-fire hall. The Soldier looked at the mansion’s entry door and sighed.

Big doors again.

They broke through them and finally, stumbled in the open, icy air. With five men aiming at them.

Definitely a trap.

The men opened fire one second after the two soldiers started to move - they may had been waiting for them, they couldn’t even hope matching them. The Soldier shot two of them while rolling away and then dropped his riffle for his knife and jumped on the third. Pietrov get out two knifes and threw them in the last two’s throat.

Not faster enough, though: he received a bullet in the stomach.

“Shit! Pietrov!” shouted the Soldier.

The boy collapsed on the ground. The Soldier rushed to him but when he lifted him in his arms, the snow was already all red and not only because of the five other corpses.

“Come on, Pietroushka. We’ve got to get outta here.”

Pietrov faintly nodded. He got on his feet, one hand pressing his stomach, another wrapped around the Soldier’s neck. The Soldier himself tried supporting him. However, they hadn’t take a feet ahead that the whole mansion exploded.

The explosion blew them and the five corpses away, burying them under snow, ashes and whatever burning remains of the house. The Soldier fought for several minutes before being able to emerge from the rubble. Now, they really needed to find a shelter. He looked around for Pietrov. He found the boy, curled on himself. He put him back on his feet and they started walking.

The mansion had been built in a remote area, deep inside the mountain. That was good news: nobody would get there within at least one more hour. The forest surrounded the mansion but a path lead to the other side of the mountain which was just a vast plain with rocks showing here and there. The Soldier hoped they would find some kind of cave.

Reaching the plain was painful. Pietroushka hanged more and more to his neck as he was loosing consciousness and the Soldier himself was hurt. His metal arm, especially, was burning. Literally burning. The metal was white-hot, burning both the skin of his left shoulder and his nerves and organs inside to which the arm was linked. It was a painfully hot spot on his side and snow would only melt around it without any cooling effect. The Soldier’s head gave him unwanted memories - but which came out of this insufferable pain - the memories of when his arm had been attached to his body. The endless screams, the blinding lights and that furnace on his side, running deep inside his body, setting on fire everyone of his nerves. This was the memory he had even forgot he even had.

But besides that pain (that wouldn’t last forever) and those memories that were killing his brain along with it, the worst part was that he didn’t know if the arm hadn’t melt inside. Obviously, he couldn’t use it at the moment but he was afraid he wouldn’t be able once it would have cooled down.

Which was really going to be a problem if they had to fight their way out.

 

When the wind rose and a storm threatened them, the Soldier found a cave. It wasn’t deep, but it was enough to disappear from unaware passers-by. The Soldier lay Pietrov against the natural wall. The boy moaned. His hand was soaking with blood. The Soldier found some bushes outside and started a small fire. His arm had cooled down by now and, as he feared, he felt that some connections and movements had been lost. He knelt beside Pietroushka and proceeded to unstrap his stiff gear in order to free his perforated abdomen. The Soldier removed his gloves for more precision but felt hypnotized by the pinky skin around the wound. Also, Pietroushka’s torso looked like a lanky boy’s with his ribs clearly visible. The Soldier could feel the peaks and valley they formed. Pietroushka giggled.

“I ain’t got a chest as big as yours Isha” he said in his sweet Russian.

“You don’t have to” the Soldier replied.

He took out the little medical instruments he had in his belt - as wounds could happen but couldn’t be a risk for the mission’s success, they all had a kind of first aid kit on them - and started to extract the bullet.

Pietrov clamped his jaws to prevent himself from crying. His fingers held tight to his clothes he was keeping away from the Soldier’s hands to facilitate the operation. Once the bullet was out, the Soldier bandaged him and went sitting on the opposite side of the cave, facing the blonde kid. Pietrov curled up and huffed on his fingers in an attempt to warm them up a little. After several minutes like this, he rose up his head towards the Soldier.

“Isha, do you think we’ll make it?” he asked.

The Soldier stared him down. He didn’t answer. He glanced at the bushes that had been totally consumed. He briefly though about going outside to fetch some more but he dismissed the idea as the storm was already blowing strong - he didn’t want to lose sight of the cave.

“Please, Isha, I don’t what to do.”

His eyes went back again on the boy. Pietroushka wasn’t afraid - nothing could really scare him and certainly not the prospect of his own death. But he deemed lost - maybe for the first time. He knew he had failed the mission (so maybe he was afraid of his future punishment) but didn’t know how.

When the Soldier refused to talk, he sighed and rested his chin on his knees.

The storm grew even stronger. And suddenly, the wind crashed into their cave. It was icing and hurt like a thousand of needles. After a dozen of seconds, though, it faded away but only to came back with the same intensity as before. Then it repeated itself several more times. The wind was so strong it was hard to breath, even for super soldiers. The Soldier rose up and came sitting next to Pietroushka, between him and the cave’s entry. He took off his mask and put it on the boy who had lost his own in the last explosion.

Instinctively, Pietroushka huddled up to him and rested his head on his right shoulder. The Soldier’s chest rose and deflated at an soothing pace. The boy could feel the sleep coming to him.

“You know,” he said in a voice made softer by the presence of the mask, “you’re my favorite Isha. I like you.”

When he head those words, the Soldier felt something around the heart, stronger than the usual quiet feeling. He didn’t even have to close his eyes because the memory appeared clearly right before his eyes. A memory of another blonde, blue-eyed boy. The stronger feeling was attached to him and the Soldier finally understood why he always got that feeling of familiarity when looking at Pietroushka.

“You remind me of someone” he said.

Pietrov looked up.

“Oh yeah? What’s his name?”

“Steve.”

Where did that name come from? The name was with the face, there was no doubt about it. But there was no more to it. No place, no time. Just the name and a strong feeling in his heart everytime he thought about it.

“I don’t like his name” replied Pietroushka. “Who was he?”

The Soldier looked down at his little own soldier.

“I don’t know.”

Pietrov tilted his head in a “didn’t expected something else actually” way.

They stayed silent for fifteen more minutes. Then, Pietroushka asked, in his softest voice:

“Can we always stay together? Please.”

The Soldier opened his mouth to remind him that this wasn’t something they could decide, that they had to let their handlers do whatever they want - for the sole reason they were their handlers - and not even start _thinking_  about the future. But his heart did something new again - it squeezed - and it felt wrong saying that. So instead he shrugged and replied:

“We’ll see.”

He didn’t see Pietroushka’s smile but somehow he felt it.

Not long after that the boy felt asleep .

 

***

 

 _Steve_.

The name had come back because of Pietroushka. Because of how much Pietroushka always looked like Steve - and felt like Steve.

 _Stevie_.

The name felt, for an unknown reason, more important than his current mission. Than his current handler. Even than his assured punishment when they’d get him back.

More important than anything else in his world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! I apologize for the lack of update last week but it was Asexual Awareness Week so I chose to write a fic about ace Bucky and ace Steve instead (it was really important for me). Anyways, as always, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! (leave a comment! I love comments! *sbaff*)


	11. Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It took time to make the Winter Soldier. It took decades. And the Soldier would always fight back and break the conditioning. It happened eight times.

It took time to make the Winter Soldier. It took decades. And the Soldier would always fight back and break the conditioning. It happened eight times.

 

1944.

He was in his dark cell, twisting his fingers mindlessly. They were covered with scars, some bright red because they were recent and some of an ugly as well as undetermined color - surely infected. His whole body was like that. But he didn’t care about his body. He cared more about his next fight. He was ready - as always. The moment the door swung open, he jumped on his feet. The soviet soldier didn’t even have to force him; he followed him to the training room without complaint.

This day, there were five of them against him. They attacked simultaneously on every sides possible. He nearly shrugged. Whatever.

He bent to dodge the hit from behind and at the same time, threw his feet in the other’s knee. He had the one behind him roll over his back and fall on his comrade facing him. Someone tried to punch him on the face but he easily blocked him with his metal arm. The fight was far too easy for him. From outside, it surely looked like a hell of a mess - a mess from which he emerged though - but to him, it only felt like a really slow dance. He blocked, he punched and again. Two men were already down - and not about to go back in the fight any time soon. He focused on a broad guy with fair hair. After rolling on the ground to dodge a hit, he put his palms on it and threw his legs through the air, aiming at the guy’s face when his comrade yelled.

“<Don’t let him touch you Steve!>

He froze. Just for one second. Enough for the guy named Steve to grab him by his ankles and threw him across the room. He landed on his back and groaned. But more than the pain, he felt nauseous. Something had crossed his mind but he hadn’t had the time to seize it before being hit. He rose up. He felt dizzy and everything just seemed off. Why were those people attacking him again? He knew he had to fight them but he also recognized that his mind was longing for something else. He had to end that fight right now. He had to take time to play the scene again in his head and find what made him freeze in the middle of his action - and why.

He pushed himself and fought faster than before. He didn’t hold back and hit as hard as he could. One guy ended up with a jaw lacking some teeth. It may have been more. Like most of them. Whatever. He was grinning when they took him back to his dark cell for he felt mildly impatient.

“Steve”. That was definitively what made him freeze. He knew it because everytime he whispered the name, something tingled inside his mind. He believed he only needed to hold on to that name to unlock... To unlock what?

Suddenly he remembered.

Steven Grant Rogers. The world knew him as Captain American. He knew him as Stevie. The brunette was his best friend. And the name of that best friend was Sergeant James Barnes. So that was who he was.

He looked around and didn’t recognize his cell. Didn’t recognize his hands - his left arm. Memories were coming back and he tried to not get overwhelmed by them. At the same time, he promised himself to hold on to that name - “Steve” - and make it his secure lock on his mind. He promised to hold on and not fall apart into the hands of his enemies. He really didn’t want to lose sight of who he was now that his memories were back. He only needed to take caution to not let them know that it happened.

He could do it. For Steve.

 

When his handlers noticed that their valuable Soldier looked more fiery than before, that his eyes mirrored something else than mere resignation and that he tended to act violently towards the others soldiers more often than acceptable, they put him on the chair for the first time.

At that time, Bucky Barnes was already in the hands of the Soviets who had captured him from an Ally base where he was secretly being kept for Zola’s most cruel interest.

Their conditioning was weak, though, and if it was enough for the Winter Soldier to switch his basic language from English to Russian, it wasn’t enough to prevent him from remembering his past. The Soviets may have been allies with the USA during WWII, it was now clear - even for him who was put in ice every now and then - that the Cold War was fought between the two of them. Between 1950 and 1960, Bucky broke his conditioning twice. However, he never achieved to escape. The first time, some HYDRA goons noticed him and claimed him back. He nearly didn’t make it out alive - not enough, at least, to flee from the Soviets right after that. The second time, they sent someone. A young woman raised in one of their special training center - like the one he was trained in and later trained the other Winter Soldiers. He couldn’t resist her. The chair and the ice took care of the rest.

 

1966.

The Winter Soldier had been shipped to America. Back to the homeland he didn’t remember was his. The mission was believed to last about three days, depending on how fast he would achieve it. It was about gathering some intel and committing a discrete assassination. The man wasn’t even high in the food chain so the Soldier had no doubt about his success.

On the night of the second day, he set up on a building’s rooftop and took out his sniper gun - he had already gathered all the intel he needed. He put one knee on the ground and rested the barrel on the low wall of the building’s edge. He checked through the visor and moved a bit. He had now a clear shot on the guy’s apartment.

The night was cloudless but the moon wasn’t shining bright. In two minutes, his target would enter his apartment and probably go for the curtain or the armchair near the windows. In three minutes’ time, he’d be dead.

The Soldier huffed calmly. He was perfectly still, waiting for his target. His mind was mostly blank but somewhere in his mind, he was already thinking about his reward for the mission’s success - the cryo. The light got switched on inside the apartment and his finger approached the trigger.

Suddenly, the sky exploded.

He didn’t even jumped but his whole body tensed up and he looked up immediately at the sky to see those bright and loud flowers of green, purple, yellow, blue colors tearing the night apart. His whole horizon had been lit up and his mind got confused. He started to panic as he tried to find the reason of these fireworks. He had his mission well prepared but he did not expect that. He tried to find a link. It was July 4th, 1966 so...

Fourth of July.

Something began to burn on the back of his head. Something about yearly fireworks obviously. But it was more than that. It was like he had forgotten to do something. Or say something. Confusedly, he remembered he once used to be an American citizen. Yet, he quickly sent away this thought for he was sure it had nothing to do with the burning feeling.

His eyes snapped back to his target. He saw him standing in front of his now open window, admiring the fireworks. Quick, he needed the job to be done. He clamped his hands on his gun and tried to focus. However, the fireworks continued to explode near his ears making a hell of a cacophony like an army of drums that resonated with those inside his own head. His heart rate increased. There was something he needed to do and and to do rapidly before it was midnight and it’d be too late.

The Soldier shut his eyes close for one second. His hands started to shake. Not good. Not good at all. He panicked. He shot twice. One too many. He hit the guy in the forehead and the neck. Before he realized how unprofessional he just was, he saw a picture flashing before his eyes. A young skinny man with blonde hair smiling with all his teeth. And all of a sudden, the Soldier remembered.

He had to wish a happy birthday to Steve.

But where the heck was Stevie?

Bucky chose to run away, his mind on fire. He didn’t noticed that he took the opposite direction of his extraction point.

 

1974.

On a stormy night, after an awful mission that nearly failed and got them both killed, the Soldier was staring at Pietroushka who was pressed against him. The boy was young, had bright blonde hair and a strangely lanky body, given the fact that he had been receiving injections to turn him into a super soldier.

“<You remind me of someone>” said the Soldier without thinking.

And Pietroushka looked up.

“<Oh yeah? What’s his name?>”

“<Steve.>”

The name was burning his mind because it was filled up with regrets and sadness and dismay. But the burn also warmed his heart for his self - his true self that had survived through every single one conditioning he had gone under - had been woken up and was now whispering to him to hold on to that name. Repeat the name, the self said, and you’ll remember who you are.

So, as Bucky began to remember who was Steve and who he was himself - Steve’s best friend - he felt Pietroushka getting jealous. When he arrived at the training camp, the kid decided on his own to put his life into the Winter Soldier’s hands. He never understood why the Soldier accepted him so easily, though. What only mattered to him was that special bond between them that they created despite all the rules. But now, he realized why he was so special in the Soldier’s eyes: he just reminded Isha of his favorite person in the world. Which meant he wasn’t special at all.

“<I don’t like his name>” he said.

Bucky shrugged. When Pietrov asked him who Steve was, he said he didn’t know because he didn’t want to explain to him. He had remembered Steve through the boy and he was certain that, as long as Pietrov would stay by his side, he wouldn’t forget Steve again. That was the most important thing right now for he needed himself to remember Steve when they’d finally meet again.

 

1982.

It was snowing and freezing. The little clouds that came out of his mouth was as white as his gear - he had traded his black suit for a white one, more stealthy when there was snow everywhere. He could only hear his own footsteps and the crackling sound of the radio. He arrived on the top of a hill. Downhill was a nice shack with smoke going out of the fireplace. He stopped and lay down.

He took out his binoculars and grunted. As planned, there was that American agent with his target. Agent Autry had been sent by the US government to recover a Soviet scientist that thought he could escape Mother Russia. How foolish of him. And what a pity for that woman.

The Winter Soldier shot twice and then rose up to his feet and turned on his radio.

“<It’s done>” he informed his handler, Father Hammer.

Whilst the officer was coming to the place, the Soldier went down the hill and entered the shack. On the threshold, he encountered a little girl - Tesla Tarasova, the scientist’s daughter. When Father Hammer finally got there, he got blamed for the Tarasova’s death - though it had been his orders all along. While taking the little girl with him into his helicopter, Father Hammer tried to kill the Soldier. Hopefully for the Soviet officer, by the time the Winter Soldier had gotten rid of every one of his goons, he was already high up in the air. The Soldier was left alone in the snow, amongst a dozen of corpses.

The Winter Soldier had no doubt that the Soviet would soon come to retrieve him. Thus running away was useless - as well as pointless for he had no other purpose in life than being the Soviets’ secret weapon. He sat on the stairs leading into the shack and waited.

A gust of wind suddenly blew through the shack and when it left it, it carried with it a piece of paper that the Soldier caught before it got taken away. It was a drawing from Tesla. It represented Captain America and his faithful friend, Bucky Barnes.

The Soldier stared at the drawing for a long time. It wasn’t the obviously ridiculous style of the drawing - he believed Captain America and Bucky Barnes weren’t smiling that much during the War - that bothered him. It was more about the two characters themselves. The Winter Soldier knew them because during his first missions, he’d sometimes disguise himself as Captain America himself. But the Bucky Barnes felt more than familiar.

The Soldier folded the paper and shoved it in one his many pockets. He looked up at the deserted land, as blank as his mind and memories.

Later that day, when he was back to his cramped cell, he took the drawing out and as he examined it more closely, he suddenly remembered how wearing that non-regular uniform felt like. The boots, the sniper gun flung across his back and the blue jacket. They all were things he’d once put on almost everyday. He was the Bucky Barnes and he only followed orders from Captain America.

 

1991.

The Soldier was ripped from the ice and thrown on the chair right away. The chair woke him up. After that, the ten words helped him remember who he was supposed to be - the Winter Soldier, a deadly weapon, made to kill.

The mission he was given was simple; he had to find a American scientist, get rid of him - through an accident like always - and steal whatever would be in the car’s trunk. He recognized the pictures as attempts to recreate Erskine’s serum. Somewhere in his mind, he knew that something similar already happened near but he didn’t try to retrieve the exact memory. He didn’t have to care about what HYDRA was up to. He just needed to get the job done.

He tracked the scientist - and his wife - down to a deserted road, in the middle of the night. He helped them crashed into a tree and got down of his motorbike to make sure they had indeed died in that car accident.

The scientist tried to escape, though - or just call for help, whatever. The Soldier walked to him and grabbed him by his greyish hair.

“Sergeant Barnes?” the man stuttered.

The Soldier frowned - it wasn’t his codename at all and he wasn’t even undercover for that mission. He briefly considered asking the old man about the name but dismissed the idea. Pointless.

He punched the man until death, put back his body on the driver seat and went to the other side of the car to strangle the woman.

He looked around and found the security camera. He made himself clearly visible to it before shooting it. Then he retrieved the video tap as proof for his handler and the briefcase inside the car’s trunk.

His handler congratulated him and he got a free day as a reward. He spent it in the training room and having his arm upgraded with the latest technology. But his mind was miles away. That name, the scientist’s face itself... As he tried to remember, he suddenly felt nauseous - but he kept trying nonetheless. Until Howard Stark came back from his scattered memory.

Howard Stark, the guy with a moustache, always hanging round Miss Peggy without seeing that she only had eyes for Stevie - or maybe he just liked flirting with her because she wasn’t all shy and blushing, rather fiery and capable of snapping back at him. Howard Stark who made Steve’s shield - and the man himself. Never went to a mission with the Howling Commandos but always being there, on the other side of the radio, providing them with the most useful intel - and never hesitating to interrupt Peggy with snarky comments they all didn’t need to hear but damn well wanted to hear when there was only mud and bombs and shredded bodies all around them. Howard Stark, the man that almost looked better than Steve. The genius, the friend.

Bucky remembered Howard.

And so he realized he’d just murdered his friend.

 

2014.

“You’re my mission!”

The Soldier punched because he didn’t want to think. His mind was a fucking mess and his target didn’t make it easier either. First, on the bridge, he called him by a new name - Bucky, not his usual codename. It got him so distracted that he actually _opened up_  to Pierce (and, as a consequence, was put on the chair). The pain was still fresh. He didn’t want the pain again. So he punched and hoped it would be over soon.

“Then finish it.”

Why did the target keep talking?

“’Cause I’m with ‘til the end of the line.”

And then the Soldier stopped because Bucky remembered.

Bucky remembered how his only wish, throughout his whole life, was to protect Steve. Protect him from the bullies in the dark alleys, from the grief and the sorrow after his mother’s death, from the War and the bombs on the battlefield. Bucky remembered how his name itself was supposed to be his reset code, how he made it his reset code so that everytime he would hear that name, he would remember and fight back again. Bucky remembered how important it was to not forget about the name until they’d met again.

Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, together ‘til the end of the line.

“St...”

The helicarrier blew up and Captain America fell into the river. Bucky jumped.

When he had made sure his best friend was safe, he ran away. There was too much inside his head for him to stay at Steve’s side. Not for the moment, at least.

 

_Today._

It had taken time to forge the Winter Soldier and Bucky Barnes always fought back. He even broke his conditioning eight times before Simm got his hands on him.

Now, he was breaking out of his programming for the ninth time.

The last one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to include some storylines from the Winter Soldier comics into that chapter and realized how NOT compliant the MCU was with them. And I also forgot my fic was an AU. Tbh I cried.  
> (Like, don't get me wrong, I just love the idea of Steve and Bucky being childhood friends like in the MCU but why aren't there any comics books following that same idea?!)


	12. Benign

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Pietrov get to have a good chat before going to Bucky's extraction point.

The two men stumbled in the snow and the burning rubble of the Russian facility. Pietrov had his arm wrapped around the Winter Soldier’s chest, to help him walk after the last explosion hit him hard on his head. In fact, they had stopped running quiet quickly - as soon as the Soldier had collapsed on the ground for the first time.

“Isha” he asked him, “where is your extraction point? Where do we have to go?”

The Soldier’s head were buzzing relentlessly and he couldn’t even see clearly ahead of them. He mumbled and pointed at the hill from where he had come. The sun was rising adding more shining white spots everywhere. They were going to be fully in the open but luckily there was no one else anymore. The sky was cloudless and the helicopters had left. Pietrov strengthened his grip beneath the Soldier’s armpit and they started climbing up the hill.

The younger super soldier didn’t take long to locate the Quinjet. He couldn’t know it was the Soldier’s but he saw there a place where to hide - Isha was barely conscious now. Pietrov dragged his master to the plane and hijacked the gateway so that they could get inside. He gently put the Soldier down and closed the door. As he started looking for supplies and bandages , the Soldier regained consciousness.

“What’s the...? Where are we?”

“Inside a plane. Don’t worry, we’re safe Isha. I just need to take care of your wound. Won’t take long.”

The boy knelt beside him but the Soldier shook his head.

“No, no... It’s fine. I’m fine.”

He was already trying to get back on his feet but Pietrov grabbed his elbow and clenched it so strongly - obviously - that the Soldier sat back and frowned. Pietrov looked worried and he felt like he ought to appease him.

“It’s just a benign wound, Pietroushka.”

But the boy didn’t looked less concerned.

“Isha...”

“What?”

“You’re speaking English.”

The Soldier looked at Pietrov and saw that he wasn’t lying. He didn’t even noticed it himself. The thing was, it was highly unusual for him to speak English - well, when he wasn’t on a mission of course - for even his HYDRA handlers would preferred to address to him in Russian. He raised his left hand and applied it to his head wound. The cold even frozen metal immediately sent a cool feeling down his spine. Pietrov sighed and slipped his hand between the Soldier’s and his head.

“Let me do this, Isha” he murmured in their natural tongue.

Pietroushka cleaned up the wound and bandaged his head.

“I’ll try get that plane off the ground now, if you-”

“No.”

The boy frowned.

“Why not? We’ve got to get out of here.”

“This is an American plane, Pietroushka” the Soldier explained. “They’ll shoot us on sight. Even HYDRA. That’s why I’m supposed to leave it there and go to the extraction point.”

Plus there was no more fuel - HYDRA calculated it so he could get there but no farther or back.

Pietrov looked irritated - but the Soldier knew he would never disobey direct order from him. So he rose up and resumed taking the inventory of the plane. He soon found out the food; he took some and went to sit down on the other side of the plane, facing the Soldier, sulking while eating (or the contrary).

The Soldier laid his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

He was thinking about the pictures and sounds that had been filling his head since they’d left the Russian compound when Pietrov’s voice made him open his eyes again.

“I think I’m cold” said the boy. “Maybe I should try to find a heating or something.”

He was staring at the Soldier. The Soldier didn’t answer so he didn’t move and didn’t even speak anymore. The Soldier realized that Pietroushka wasn’t simply sharing about the discomfort he felt within his body; he was asking permission to do something about it. Which meant that Pietrov would probably die of cold if the Soldier never gave him his permission. Personally, the Soldier would never act like that. If he were cold, he would do something to warm him up, even if it would delay the mission or if his handlers didn’t agree because they liked seeing him suffer. Because of that, the Soldier realized his conditioning was weakened.

He tapped the metal ground near his right side.

“Come here.”

Pietrov only smiled for a split second but he saw it. Then the boy swiftly rose to his feet and ran across the plane to sit right next to him. The Soldier slung his arm around his shoulder and rubbed his elbow in order to provoke friction - hence heat.

“This kind of remind me of something” said the Soldier. “Do you recall, that mission with the American ambassador?”

Pietroushka nodded.

“Yeah. I nearly got us killed.”

“I don’t think that was your fault.”

The blonde didn’t answer but pressed himself more against him.

“I remember you were cold and I warmed you” said the Soldier.

“I remember you talked to me about Steve” Pietroushka replied.

The Soldier reacted to his response like he would have to a trigger word and his gaze got lost in the distance.

“Yes. Steve. I need to find Steve.”

“You remember who he is now?” asked the boy bitterly - his jealousy was building up again and he could do nothing about it (not that he wanted to, to be honest).

“Of course. He’s my best friend.”

Pietrov bit his lips. He wished _he_  was Isha’s best friend but that wasn’t something he could speak of out loud - the rules were clear enough on that topic. Thus he didn’t speak until the Soldier turned his head toward him and said:

“I’m surprised you remember. You know, after all that memory-wiping and mind-cleaning and stuff you must have been through since we last saw each other.”

Suddenly the boy sat up to look at him directly into the eyes and he spoke as if the answer was evident.

“I remember everything about you Isha.”

The Soldier looked even more surprised - and genuinely interested when he asked him:

“How? How did you manage to remember everything?”

The boy swallowed but looked determined. He figured that he was already in trouble so a little more or a little less would surely make no difference in his impending punishment.

“Because I love you.”

He froze, waiting for the punishment - or at least, the confirmation that the Soldier was going to report him for his unappropriated behavior. But something completely else happened.

“Yeah, I figured” said the Soldier with a smirk.

Then he pulled him against him again and patted his head.

“You... figured?” stuttered Pietrov out of utter amazement.

The Soldier grinned.

“Ten minutes ago. When I started to have my memory back. But t’was kinda super obvious when you think about it.”

Pietrov blushed. After a few seconds, he asked sheepishly:

“So you’re not angry?”

The Soldier shrugged.

“Why would I? That’s none of my business.”

Pietrov nodded. He was pressed against the Soldier’s chest and could hear his heartbeat and feel his chest going up and down at each breath the man took. It was somewhat soothing - and exciting too, for it was the first time the two of them were so closed to each other. His own heart was beating faster. He took time to etch the feeling on his memory - despite the chair and the torture, Pietrov had discovered how to preserve certain memories from ever being wiped away - before he was able to ask the question that was worrying him since they had gotten inside that plane and had nothing else to do but wait for Isha’s extraction.

“What will happen to me? After they got us back? I’m not theirs and I disobeyed the Russians.”

The Soldier growled.

“Pietrousha, the Russians were going to let you _die_. Forget about them already.”

Unlikely to happen but better act like he would actually try - that would make Isha pleased.

“Okay. But what will happen with your handlers? HYDRA? You think they’ll sell me away? ‘Cause you already left me and I didn’t like it.”

The Soldier took a deep, deep breath before answering.

“I think... I think I’m done with them too. I don’t want to go back with them. I’ll probably kick the extraction team’s ass and steal their plane. Yeah, sounds fun. You’re with me?”

Pietrov sat up again but this time he looked truly horrified.

“What are you saying? You can’t-! Isha you can’t just decide what you want or what you don’t want! That’s up to them!”

The boy threw himself on his arm as if he was trying to restrain him.

“Don’t do it! Please don’t do it! They’ll hurt you, Isha, they’ll hurt you! Please!”

But the Soldier took his chin between his metal fingers and forced him to look at him in the eyes.

“Listen to me Pietroushka. Before that mission, before HYDRA got their hands on me again, I was free. Steve helped me to break the conditioning. I was free.”

Pietrov shook his head.

“You’re not making any sens Ish-”

“Bucky.”

The boy frowned.

“What?”

Bucky smirked.

“That’s my real name. Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. AKA Bucky. To be honest, I think it’s a pretty cool name for a pretty cool dude like me.”

“It sounds American.”

Pietrov looked like he was highly disappointed - even as if he felt betrayed.

That sight made Bucky laugh.

“Yes of course! I’m an American citizen.”

This time, he seemed to be completely disgusted and dammit that was too fun to watch and not laugh about it.

However, before the boy could say anything, Bucky proceeded to tell him what happened of him after they got separated. He glossed over his HYDRA years and focused on his mission in DC when he and Steve ran into each other - and also kind of fought each other. Pietroushka felt immensely jealous but he couldn’t not smile too, due to Bucky’s own enthusiasm.

The former assassin then told him about his life with the Avengers - how Tony tried to piss him off everytime he saw him, how Clint helped him educate himself with the real culture (“ _Star Wars_ , you need to see it Pietroushka”), how he loved spending time with Natasha because of their shared troubled Russian past and obviously, how he _adored_  spending time with Steve. He also talked about Thor who was apparently a space Prince and the fuck if he understood where the hell did he come from and there was also Sam Wilson, Steve’s new best friend who was high into the “let piss the Winter Soldier off” game alongside Tony.

“Sounds like you were having fun with them” stated Pietroushka.

Bucky nodded.

“They’re all really nice. Very kind to me.”

They both fell silent. Then:

“I’m still pissed you’re not Russian” said Pietrov with a awful smirk.

Bucky stared at him.

“You’re a piece of shit Pietroushka.”

The boy laughed.

“You know you taught me everything I am.”

“Don’t spit out bullshit and come here.”

The ex-Winter Soldier grabbed Pietrov and placed him between his legs. The blonde laid his head back on his chest and Bucky put his chin in the top of his head. He closed his arms around his friend and told him:

“I may not be Russian but I promise I’ll always watch over you братишка.”

The boy giggled when he heard the tender “little brother.”

Bucky added:

“So, you’ll help me kick some HYDRA ass?”

“Anything you want Ish- Bucky. How’s your wound?”

“Bad.”

Pietrov immediately looked up at him with a worry frown. Bucky grinned.

“I’ve got a concussion. So that’s bad. And also I’m fucking cold. And I want to eat plums. Or a burger. No, wait: a burger, a lot of fries and some plums. Oh and also watch that movie Clint told me about last week. On the couch, with a huge blanket and a hot chocolate. That would be perfect. I know it’s not Christmas yet but I want to do that nonetheless. And fuck everyone who’d want to stop me. I’m the best assassin in the word, I do what I want, bitch.”

Pietrov was still staring at him - mildly bewildered now.

“I think you’ve gone crazy.”

Bucky huffed into his blonde hair and smirked.

“You’ll see” he simply said.

Then they both tried to have some good sleep.

 

The extraction was meant to take place at dawn. They got up one hour before, ate what was left of the food supply, checked their weapons and jogged to the location. As they found themselves in the middle of nowhere - welcome to the Russian tundra - there was nothing to hide behind. They just stood as the plane began to land.

“Stay behind me” said Bucky to Pietrov, his voice muffled by his mask.

He stored his riffle away to appear unarmed.

“Don’t worry, I know the plan” the boy answered, his own voice distorted because of the same reason.

The gateway went down and a HYDRA officer with two other heavily geared soldiers in tow appeared on top of it. They climbed out the plane and moved forward to the both of them.

“Report, Winter Soldier” ordered the officer.

“I’ve got the files.”

The officer nodded.

“Good.”

He then pointed at Pietroushka, standing in Bucky’s back, half of his body hidden by it.

“Who’s that?”

Bucky didn’t answer right away. The officer had no idea who the man was looking at behind his huge red goggles. As a matter of fact, the answer to that question wasn’t who but where. The two Russian spies used their goggles to scan the plane and spotting all men on board - one in the pilot cabin, five more in the back.

Piece of cake.

Bucky tilted his head, looking back at the officer.

“Your doom” he said.

Before they could react, Pietrov’s hand appeared on Bucky’s other side, holding a gun. He shot the officer. The two friends parted right afterwards and took down the two other soldiers in a heartbeat. Bucky then put away his knife and grabbed his riffle.

“You take care of the pilot” he indicated to Pietrov.

Bucky rushed inside the plane and opened fire immediately. Pietrov entered one second after him and ran on the right side of the aircraft. He jumped on the pilot and stabbed him right in the middle of the chest. He then threw the body away as the last soldier groaned in pain in his back and sat down on the pilot seat. As he started to maneuver, he heard Bucky’s footsteps coming up to him.

“You killed him” said Captain America’s best friend, bent over the pilot’s corpse.

Pietrov didn’t turn away.

“Well, what was I supposed to do? Invite him to a- Oh.”

“What’s wrong?”

The boy frowned at the radar.

“Another plane.”

He turned to Bucky and saw on his face that the second aircraft wasn’t planed. But Bucky didn’t let that throw him off.

“With me” he simply said.

Pietrov nodded and put out his two guns. They carefully get out the plane and went hiding behind the enormous rotor. They knelt down and waited for the other plane to land and then for the men inside to come out in the open. But as soon as the first figure appeared, Bucky let out a strangled noise.

“Steve?”

It was more of a whisper than anything else but the super-soldier ear caught it and Steve’s eyes darted right to where Bucky was hiding. The ex-assassin stepped out of the shadows - despite Pietrov hurried him not to - and moved forward.

“Bucky.”

Steve’s face changed from utter worry to utter joy. He rushed to his friend and embraced him with all his super soldier strength - hopefully Bucky was nearly as strong otherwise he would not have survive that reunion.

“Oh Bucky, I missed you so much!”

Bucky patted him on the back like he didn’t care much. But the truth was he was smiling as gleefully as Steve.

“I know, pal” he answered. “I know.”

They parted and Bucky saw a single tear on Steve’s cheek. The blonde bit his lips to prevent himself from smiling anymore but he just couldn’t and Bucky felt like laughing at how cute he looked - luckily for Steve, he took pity on him.

Steve brushed him on the shoulder.

“Come on, buddy. Let’s get you home.”

“Oh thanks God. Thought you’ll never say that. Here am I, burger and plums!” the brunet replied.

Steve frowned with confusion as his friend took a step on the gateway before turning to the HYDRA plane and saying something in Russian - and he frowned even more when a second Winter Soldier (although a blonde one) came out the shadows and joined Bucky without even looking at the Captain.


	13. Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky take a trip back to Brooklyn and raise a few old memories.

Bucky tapped gently on the glass.

“Hey” he called through it.

Inside his cell, Pietroushka instantly looked over his shoulder and when he saw who was visiting him, he rolled on his couch and sat up cross-legged.

“Hi” he said sheepishly.

Bucky leaned more on the glass barrier that was separating the two of them - and separating Pietrov from the rest of the word. The brunet was trying to figure out if his protegee had been treated well - despite him being in a cell, obviously.

“You’re holding up in there?” he asked in Russian.

“Yeah, I guess.”

The blond rose up and came to the barrier to put his palm on it, near Bucky’s body - albeit on the other side. He slightly frowned.

“Isha, you know I’m not afraid-”

“You’ve got the right to, pal” interrupted Bucky, mildly irritated by his programming not having faded away yet.

“-but I just want to know” Pietrov continued as if he didn’t hear, “what they intent to do with me. Like, if they’re going to put me on ice again or just kill me, you know?”

Bucky stood up and looked at him in his clear blue eyes.

“They’re not going to kill you. That’s not what SHIELD does.” Pietrov shrugged - they both knew where HYDRA was hiding these last decades. “I promise, Pietroushka! I won’t let them! I’m trying to get you out of here, but it’s complicated, you know, because of your-”

Pietrov tilted his head. Bucky sighed.

“Well, because you’re a loyal piece of shit by nature, Pietroushka. And as long as you ain’t starting to think by yourself, it would be too dangerous for everyone if you were to be released. You understand that, right?”

The Russian blond sneered.

“I always did what my country told me to do, Isha. I’m not ashamed and I certainly don’t regret.”

The ex-assassin rolled his eyes before fixing them back on his friend, clearly wanting to answer something along the lines of “that’s exactly what I’m talking about you punk”.

“Though I do miss you” Pietrov added. “So maybe I’ll make an effort.”

“That’s more like it” Bucky replied. “Now, listen, I have to go. I’ll promise I’ll be back soon but, er, Steve wants us to visit Brooklyn again and knowing that punk, that’ll probably take us the day so I’d better get him started now. Take care okay?”

He smiled one last time and turned on his heels. However, before he could get far away, Pietrov called him back.

“You know” the boy exclaimed, “you were right: I really look like Steve. So I guess you just prefer the American to the Russian.”

“You’re a real piece of shit Pietroushka” replied Bucky.

The boy gave him his beaming smile.

“That’s why you love me so much. Bye bye Buckaroo, have a nice day!”

Bucky finally left him with a smile hovering on his face. He thought it was nice to have his two “Steve” on his side; he’d missed the second one almost as much as the first one - the original one. Thus he was really grateful to SHIELD and Tony for having accepted to lock him up at the Avengers’ Tower instead of a SHIELD compound until they’d have figured out what to do with him. That way, he could visit him as much as he wanted to-

“Hey Winter Soldier!”

Bucky stopped and slowly turned to face the second cell.

“What do you want Dimitri?”

He got it; they wanted the two brainwashed Russian super-soldiers at the same place. But that sharp face and this steel smile were definitively __not__  something he’d missed from his time under the Soviets’ custody.

“Come on Isha! Why are you so-”

“Don’t call me that.”

They stared at each other for a few seconds. At least, the two cells couldn’t communicate; Bucky was afraid of what Dimitri could tell Pietrov now that he wasn’t under HYDRA’s control anymore (which meant he was back in his casual Russian programming which, in Bucky’s opinion, couldn’t be that far from the man Dimitri really was). The large man pressed his face against the glass with a twisted smile.

“I’m just wondering how much more time before your handlers throw you away and you end up like us. Useless.”

Bucky clenched his first and stepped forward Dimitri.

“I. Don’t. Have. Handlers. Anymore.”

Dimitri laughed wryly.

“Yeah, keep telling you that, Isha. You’ve always been your own man, haven’t you?”

“Shut up! I told you not to call me like that!”

The Russian soldier squinted his eyes, almost in defiance.

“Right. You prefer Winter Soldier maybe?”

Suddenly Bucky threw his fist into the glass - it resisted obviously but Dimitri took a step back, surprised.

“I’m not the Winter Soldier. Not anymore. I’m free, now.”

And before Dimitri could poison his mind any further, he walked away at a brisk pace - yet he couldn’t but heard what his former student shouted at him.

“That’s exactly how you felt during the Cold War!”

Now infuriated, Bucky went by Simm’s cell without noticing the thin smile on the thinner man.

He left the prisoners’ section inside the Tower to meet up with Steve who had been waiting for him in the entry hall. As soon as his friend saw him, he furrowed his frown.

“Bucky. You’re alright? Something bad happened down there?” he asked with concern.

Bucky didn’t stop near him and continued on his trajectory, heading for the Tower’s entry. Despite his super-soldier legs, Steve had to jog a bit to catch up with him.

“Dimitri’s an asshole” the brunet mumbled.

Steve sighed as he opened the door to let his friend go through.

“Well, I did find him a bit... irritating when you went missing and we tried to question him.”

Outside the building, Bucky took a deep breath. It was way warmer than when he was in the middle of the Russian tundra but it was still a few degrees lower than the temperature inside the Tower and that sensation of fresh air helped him cool his mind.

“At least” he said “I got to break his nose. Even if I don’t remember it.”

Steve froze and rose his eyebrow as Bucky strolled to Steve’s motorcycle, parked right outside the Tower - it should have been impossible given where the Tower was located in the city but the brunet suspected that the Avengers could park wherever they wanted to in the whole block, courtesy of the mayor to Stark.

The blond joined him and sat on the front seat of his motorbike.

“So you don’t remember what happened in Alaska?” he mused out loud.

Bucky didn’t answer him.

“Where’s your helmet Rogers?” he asked instead in his deep, frightening voice.

Steve shrugged.

“Come on Buck.”

For God’s sake, there were super-soldiers.

But Bucky wasn’t listening.

“You helmet Rogers” he repeated and if Steve hadn’t grew up with _that_  glare, he sure would have peed himself by now.

The blond rolled his eyes.

“Fine!”

Luckily, he had a trunk at the back of his vehicle in which he had stored his helmet - along with some tools and some snacks. He put it on and with a brisk movement of his wrist had the engine started. Bucky nodded and climbed behind him.

“And what about yours, Buck?” Captain America asked in all his righteousness and not for a slightly part bitter.

Bucky shrugged casually.

“I can’t wear things near my face because it triggers me and my shrink said I should avoid it completely.”

Before the mission to Alaska, Bucky never showed any particular interest in whatever his shrink would told him - not that he thought he was doing okay (he wasn’t) and fine on his own (he couldn’t sleep without Steve in his room), more because of his guilt complex. Steve doubted that he did, now, but the difference was that the guilt was mostly gone (good new) because good ol’ sassy Bucky was back (less good news despite what Tony called an increased likability of his team mate).

In short, Steve growled, fully aware that Bucky was trolling him.

“Jerk.”

Bucky pocked him in the hip with his metal fingers.

“Punk. Come on Rogers, drive already.”

They left the vicinity of the Avengers Tower and headed for Brooklyn, their true homeland.

 

***

 

Steve stopped his motorcycle only a few streets away from where they had grown up and it happened to be beside the drugstore they knew - although, if the building was the same, the interior had nothing to do with the one they knew from the forties.

“I recognize that drugstore” said Bucky, going near it.

“I bet you would” Steve replied as he was securing his vehicle.

He rose up and joined Bucky, in front of the window. Nothing that was being sold in there was common or even known seventy years ago but they were pleased to note that one shelf, at the back of the shop, was the same one Mr. Oliver stood before when he greeted his clients.

“You went in there, I don’t know... once a week?” mused Steve.

“Of course I did. You had pneumonia, Steve. You couldn’t be the one to go shopping.”

Steve chuckled.

“Yeah, shopping. You’d go for the groceries, too. And the dishes, the cleaning... God, you used to do every single chore. Never letting me help.”

Bucky grinned and slang his arm around Steve’s broad shoulders - for one second, he looked surprised as if his body was expecting someone.. smaller.

“Well, I figured your business with your bed was too important for me to interrupt” he quipped.

But Steve shook his head.

“I wasn’t that much ill, Buck! I could have helped more!”

Bucky shrugged.

“Didn’t care.”

He let his arm fall loose and tilted his head in the direction of the street.

“Come on. Let’s go see our home. That’s why we’ve come here, right?”

Steve nodded.

They walked down the streets leading to their former house. They were so close to each other that Steve’s right arm would sometimes collide with Bucky’s metal arm but he barely noticed it because of the multiple layers of fabric - he was wearing his usual brown jacket while Bucky had a long-sleeved navy blue shirt and a burgundy pull-over. When Steve looked at him, he could barely see his eyes, hidden behind a cap and a curtain of thin black hair. Bucky had tied his hair back as usual but strands of it still managed to fall before his eyes. Steve rose a finger to put one of them back behind his ear. Bucky glanced at him.

“We don’t really look much like when we left, do we?” he asked softly.

Bucky nodded.

“You’d want to go see your mother’s grave after that?” he asked his friend.

Steve grinned.

“Yours too, Buck. We aren’t here just for me, you know.”

But the ex-assassin shook his head.

“No, I don’t want to-”

He shut his mouth. Steve didn’t agree more. They were looking at the road and the shops and the buildings, barely recognizing anything. Sometimes, even the streets’ names had been changed.

Steve explained to Bucky that, though SHIELD had provided him with a flat the moment he had woken up, he had been looking to buy something in Brooklyn again. The prices were unbelievably high now, obviously, so he had been thinking about a one-floor flat or a joint-tenancy, exactly the same sort that what they lived in when Steve’s mother died and the two moved in together. But despite all this researches, he had never actually returned to these streets, not until that day.

Eventually, they turned around a corner and arrived at their destination. The building was overall the same. One of his facade looked brand-new but the backyard and the yellow fire escape - that they’d used only, back in the days - was the same one that they remembered climbing up and down for many months.

“Do you think we can have a closer look?” asked Bucky.

“I don’t know. But, dammit, I won’t stay here. It’s been over seventy years, I want to see.”

Bucky smiled at Steve’s not so Mister Perfect Civilian remark.

They jumped over the wooden fence and landed on the backyard. It was still a plain hard-packed surface with no law or anything else that could have made it look less like a waste ground. They went to the back of the building and started climbed up the fire escape to their former floor.

“I didn’t remember it being so tight” said Steve.

“Me neither. And I don’t remember it being so fragile too.”

With his black combat boots, the brunet were shaking the whole thing at every step he took.

They managed to go to the floor that opened to what used to be their flat. The door had been changed and Bucky noted that the brick under which Steve used to hide his keys was gone.

“Well” said Steve, “It’s been seventy years, after all.”

Even the view from up there wasn’t the one they remembered; at that time, Bucky hadn’t been trained to spot a target miles away and Steve hadn’t had the super-serum to cure his bad eyesight.

As they turned on their heels, ready to leave, the door to their ancient flat opened.

“Can I help you?”

It was an little old lady with short gray hair curling around a chubby and bright face with thin lips and dark eyes. She wore a simple pink dress with a flower pattern and was rubbing her hands on an equally light purple apron.

“Oh no, no, thank you” answered Steve. “It’s just that, you see...”

“We used to live here” Bucky finished.

The old lady squinted at them. Suddenly, her tender smile vanished and she opened her eyes wide.

“Steve?” she asked.

She then turned to Bucky.

“And you are... James?”

The two men were confused.

“Excuse us ma’am but... who are you?” asked Steve finally.

The lady was almost crying.

“I’m Nancy. Nancy Patterson, I mean Oakley. Nancy Oakley. I used to live in the other building, across the road.”

Steve was the first to remember and to rush to the lady to embrace her in his arms.

“Nance! Oh God, it’s been so long! You were always playing with your dolls in the backyard and sometimes, you’d even come play with-”

“-my sister” said Bucky.

He looked mildly lost - and somewhat guilty. Steve figured he may have just remembered his sister.

“You were Becca’s best friend.” Bucky added. “When she came to the house, we used to invite you as well and you played in the living-room. Steve liked to draw the both of you.”

Nancy nodded, tears streaming down her face.

“I missed you so much. And Becca, too, of course.”

The brunet looked away. Steve cleared his throat.

“Yeah. We, um, just wanted to see how much of our Brooklyn was left.”

Nancy wiped away her tears and suddenly she was all cheerful again.

“Yes, yes of course! Why don’t you boys come inside? I’ll make tea and I have cookies freshly baked from this morning! Let me hear your story, I’m sure it’s exciting!”

Steve chuckled. Nancy took a step away so he could go through the door - barely but still go through it. Bucky followed closely behind him. Then Nancy shut her door and had them sit on the couch before rushing to the kitchen. She was like a child on a Christmas’ morning and her festive mood even managed to lift Bucky’s spirits up.

She put the cookie and the tea on a plate before them and sat in her wheelchair, wriggled a little and brushed her cute dress.

“So!”

She stared at them with sparkling eyes.

“Tell me everything.”

“It’s not a happy story, Nance. Actually, we’d prefer to hear yours” proposed Steve.

But she cut him off, jiggling her forefinger authoritatively.

“No, no, no. Mine is boring. I want to know what happened to you, boys. And first of all, how did you become so big Stevie?”

The blond laughed.

“So you really want us to start from the beginning?”

Bucky sat himself more comfortably inside the couch and let his arm hang on the back of it, behind Steve’s neck.

“Yeah, actually, go on _Stevie_. I think I don’t quite remember the beginning.”

Steve whined.

“You just want to blame me all over again!”

Bucky’s smile broadened - like a predator’s.

“Maybe.”

“Oh, my!” chimed in Nancy. “This will definitively be interesting.”

 

***

 

It was already dark outside when they finally managed to get out of Nancy’s grip - but not without promising her to come back soon (maybe for Thanksgiving? It wasn’t in many days from now and Bucky really wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving properly because it’s been decades Steve and Soviets don’t do that and it’s cold in Russia Steve and let me just eat a fricking turkey in my old house, for God’s sake, Steve).

When they were about to leave, Nancy put her shaking and tiny hand on Bucky’s metal arm without flinching at the contact.

“You always were my favorite James” she told him. “I grew up thinking I’d marry you. I didn’t so I hope you’ll get to be happy anyway...”

“Nance.”

She stopped giggling and stared at him in all seriousness.

“James, whatever you did, whatever they made you do... you’re still young. Don’t let them ruin your whole life that’s still waiting for you. Don’t let them define who you are. The past can’t be rewritten but the future is still a blank page and you’ve got the pen. Only you got the pen.”

Bucky looked tenderly at Nancy before putting a light kiss on her forehead.

“Thank you, Nance. I’ll be sure to remember that.”

They waved Nancy goodbye and climbed down the fire escape before heading through the street to Steve’s motorcycle.

“How do you feel Buck?” asked the blond as they walked by shops owned by people they didn’t knew anymore.

Bucky opened his mouth and looked at the star-full night coming up on them. Then he smiled and slang his arm around Steve so brutally the Captain nearly lost his balance.

“I feel at home” he said.


	14. One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Steve take some time to have a nice conversation.

14 - One

 

“Mind if I close the door Buck? I won’t mind a little privacy. Here, your beer.”

“Thanks, pal. Hey, I think I don’t know this one.”

“Wouldn’t be surprising. It’s Natasha who made me discover it. She had Barton get used to it and then me. I think it’s pretty good actually.”

“Nat? Guess that explains why it’s Russian then.”

“I guess too.”

“ _Beer from the cold_. Couldn’t have come up with a silliest name even if they wanted to.”

“Is that what it translates to? Geez, I don’t know for you but I don’t like the word _cold_  anymore these days.”

“I don’t know pal. S’not like you weren’t talkin’ to the Winter Soldier.”

“Buck...”

“Hey, you’re right, that beer’s not so bad. You know what amazes me? How open Russia is nowadays. Now, don’t get me wrong, I know the country’s far from perfect but I’ve started to remember my time over there. Or as you can call it, my Soviet time. Well, let me tell you this: I’m glad I wasn’t that aware of what was happening to me at that time because even the guys guarding us, well, I’m pretty sure they had it worse than us. So, like, yeah. Progress.”

“I guess everything is about progress, now. I don’t remember our government being in a hurry about helping other countries back in the days, when they wouldn’t enter the war, even though Hitler was a damn obvious threat to the whole world.”

“Wow, hey there, shut your mouth Rogers. I talk Stalin and you talk Word War Two? Who’s being the old man here?”

“I don’t know. Remind me who turned a hundred years not long ago?”

“I AM NOT. I’ve barely lived five more years than you. Geez, what do you always have to be such an asshole Steve? Why did I do to you in the first place?”

“You stuck with me, that what you did. I told you I was fine by my own but no, you decided to stay with me, like in the same flat, as soon as Ma died-”

“THAT WAS EIGTY YEARS AGO. For shit’s sake! You know what? Take another beer, Rogers. Maybe you’ll be less of a pain in my ass.”

“You know I can’t get drunk right?”

“Yes I know. Remember that night near Vienna? We didn’t have a single drop of alcohol to drink for a whole week after that. And it wasn’t even worth it.”

“I... didn’t expect you to remember our drinking game night.”

“Neither did I. But I’m glad that stuck with me. At the very least, we had you cursing the officer that was telling us to go to sleep. His face is something I won’t forget either.”

“Sometimes I regret I had put this team together.”

“Don’t say bullshit Rogers. We were the fucking best.”

“Is that how you call people that jump right in the middle of a Nazi compound and just expecting me to save all their asses?”

“First, if I recall correctly (and I’m pretty sure I do), it was one time and it was because Garnier had forgotten he had put a bomb in the tank instead of a tracker. Secondly, we did an amazing job that day even before you arrived. And you took your time.”

“Because you had left camp without permission! And __I__  needed one!”

“And finally, I was the one to save your ass. Actually, I don’t remember you thanking me for that.”

“I did.”

“No, I can’t remember it. So, where’s my thanks Steve? This calls for a pizza at least! Go fetch me last night’s rest of pizza.”

“There isn’t anymore. Clint got hungry in the afternoon and he took it. He only left the beers.”

“Then, I’ll settle on the beers. Come on, Steve! They aren’t gonna get here by themselves!”

“Geez, okay, I’m on my way. But seriously, how a convenient memory blank.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about and my shrink said you shouldn’t push me too hard because recovering my memory can be painful.”

“Yeah, whatever. I’m gone anyway.”

“I heard you! Steve! Bring back the whole pack! Steve! You’re not stepping back on that balcony without the whole pack!”

 

***

 

“And here you go, jerk.”

“Punk. But thanks.”

“So, do you... I mean. How’s your memory going? Do you remember everything?”

“Nah. S’more like I have the essentials but not the details. Or like, a big, big room. And it stuffed. But the room’s so big you know there’s a lot of furniture missing. But you don’t know which... or if it’s the ones you need.”

“I see.”

“What I am afraid of is that I’ll be able to remember everything I did when I was the Winter Soldier but that some details from before the war are lost for good. And, you know, that if I dig too much, I will only get more Winter Soldier’s memories.”

“Did today help? Going back to Brooklyn, with me? I mean, honestly, I went there because of you. I was hoping you could remember more of your life before the war.”

“And less of my life after it?”

“Well...”

“I’m not saying that I wouldn’t want that or that I’m not grateful. But yes, I think it did help a little. Especially, reconnecting with Nance. I... It felt good. I’m sorry it took us too much time tho, and we couldn’t go to see you Ma’s grave.”

“Don’t be. We’ll have plenty of other occasions, won’t we? Remember your little tantrum: Nancy will be expecting us for Thanksgiving now. I’ll jump at the opportunity.”

“Thanksgiving with Nance. That’s gonna be so great. And it gets me thinking, are there any of the other people we used to know still alive?”

“Peggy’s still alive, yes.”

“Aw man! That’s amazing! Would you take me to her? Please, I really want to see her again now! She’s such a gorgeous creature, you know, well not as gorgeous as me obviously but-”

“She’s ill, Buck.”

“Ill? What do you mean?”

“I mean she can’t recognize me half of the time. Actually, she does, but she forgets where she is, what year it is. Sometimes, she’d just talk to me like we’re still in the War and I survived the crash.”

“Oh. And, er, what about the Howling Commando?”

“...”

“All of them?”

“I’m sorry, Buck.”

“I’m sorry for the two of us, pal. You slept the rest of the century away and while I was awake, I... They all lived without us knowing it or them knowing we were still out there.”

“That’s sad, yes.”

“No, Steve. It’s not sad, it sucks. They took away our lives.”

“We gave it to them when we enlisted in the army.”

“For shit’s sake! No, we didn’t! You did! I never enlisted, I was drafted!”

“You... what? But you told me-”

“I told you what you wanted to hear! That I was gonna fight for my fucking country like you wanted to do yourself! You think I cared about the war?! I never wanted to fight! I just wanted to have a normal life with a wife and children and-!”

“Bucky!”

“I just wanted to live peacefully with you Steve... They turned me into a weapon but I never wanted- I just wanted-”

“I know. I know, Buck. Please, calm down. I’m here. I’m here, everything’s gonna be alright now. You don’t have to fight anymore.”

“I’m so tired...”

“I know. But you’re fine now. I’m here.”

“OK, that’s it : hands off me Rogers. And tell me: what about Becca?”

“She’s still alive. But, I have to warn you: Alzheimer got her too. I’m sorry.”

“No, maybe it’s for the best. She’s not my little sister anymore. Like Nance isn’t the little girl that I used to carry on my shoulder. Not anymore. And also she wouldn’t want to learn how her big brother shot her president.”

“You did what again?”

“Stars are really shinin’ tonight, don’t you think? I hate big cites with their neon lights everywhere but the Tower is perfect for star-gazing.”

“Bucky, did you shoot-”

“What now Steve? You want to know every one of my assassinations? You want the list? You want me to report to you?”

“Oh God, no! Buck! I- I’ll never ask something like that!”

“I’m sorry. Guess my body is gettin’ old and six beers are enough now. I hope it’ll help me sleep better.”

“Buck, can I ask you something? You can say no, of course.”

“Sounds like we’re already in the drama, pal. So shoot it.”

“I just wanted to know- No, it’s silly actually. I’m sorry. Listen, Buck, no matter what happened, I want you to know I’m here. I’ve got your back, now. I know that whatever you did during this period, well, that it wasn’t you. You were brainwash-”

“Shut up.”

“What?”

“Shut your fucking mouth, Rogers.”

“I don’t understand...”

“Did you speak to Pietrov?”

“Yes. He’s just like you but I feel it’ll take time before we can help him to get out of his programming and-”

“There’s no programming. Well, he’s been brainwashed, just like me. Just in case. But he’s thinking for himself now and I suspect he always did, in some way.”

“But-”

“But he’s made up his own programming. And actually I helped him with that. When he first came to the camp, I spotted him. So weak, so naive. So I didn’t only train him to kill, I trained him to comply. I trained him to fight in his own way so he’d be able to choose between failing his mission or dying while trying but I also trained him to carry out his missions without thinking about it. Thinking about what they meant. My point is, Steve, I did it. All those crimes.”

“You may have been the finger on the trigger, Bucky, but you never were-”

“Yes, I was! It was me Steve! They wiped my memory away so I could never think about my place in that world and so I’d just obey them blindly because I couldn’t have any other purpose. But I remember now. The Winter Soldier and I, we’re not that different. Now that I’ve gotten my memory back I can feel what he felt. I wasn’t buried under layers of programming. I was lost. But I was me. The Winter Soldier didn’t take my place, he worked at my place. What I didn’t understand I was asked to do, he did it. In a way, he was as lost as me. That’s why it wasn’t so hard to reclaim myself after I got hit on the head and started to remember. He just left it to me because I was willing to do the job. He never wanted to do these missions more than I did. But there were the only things that could get him to what he wanted.”

“What’s that?”

“To disappear. Living was painful for him. Not because he had no clue of who he was but because he knew his purpose in life - doing what he was asked to do - was just a disillusion.”

“So, what happened to him? Where is he now?”

“Gone. Back inside me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There’s nothing to understand, Steve. I’m the Winter Soldier. Like it or not.”

“Well I don’t like it. Because you’re my friend, you’re James Buchanan Barnes.”

“No, I’m not. I’m sorry but I can’t. I can’t be that guy anymore. And to be honest, I think he was already gone after Azzano.”

“If you had told me...”

“What for? So you could have pitied me? Face it: we all change. Can you really swear to me that you’re the same person that crashed into the Arctic?”

“No. No, of course, I’m not.”

“Same here. James Barnes’s dead for decades, pal.”

“So who are you?”

“Bucky. I don’t think there’s much more that can be added to that.”

“Okay. Well then, nice to meet you Bucky. I’m Steve. I hope we can be friends.”

“You fucking punk.”

“Jerk.”

“But I guess... thanks for that.”

“The beers? Actually, it’s Clint’s supply. By the way, he’s so gonna be so mad when he’ll see that you drank it all.”

“You’re really an asshole, aren’t you? You know what I’m talking about. And I didn’t drink these beers alone. You’re responsible for a third if no more.”

“You’re right. I’m glad too that we could have had this conversion. I feel like we needed it. The both of us.”

“True.”

 

***

 

“Steve?”

“Bucky?”

“Steve.”

 

***

 

“Let’s get back inside.”

 

***

 

“Captain Rogers, Sergeant Barnes, I have been notified that Simm has escaped. It appears that he has regained his memory and has gotten help from the Winter Soldier Dimitri. I think he’s heading for the train station.”

“...”

“...”

“...Alright. Thanks for telling us, JARVIS. Tell Tony we’re on our way. Bucky, let’s- What are you doing?”

“Taking Nat’s beers. I think I fucking deserve it at this point.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time is last chapter!
> 
> I had much fun writing this one and I hope you enjoyed reading it!


	15. Freight Car

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Steve go after Simm.

Arm slang around Bucky’s shoulder, Steve stepped back with him inside the Avengers Tower from the balcony where they just had spent their evening, talking about little stuff, when, out of sudden, JARVIS’s voice resonated in the room.

“Captain Rogers, Sergeant Barnes,” the AI said in his always chill distinguished voice, “I have been notified that Simm has escaped. It appears that he has regained his memory and has gotten help from the Winter Soldier Dimitri. I think he’s heading for the train station.”

The two men exchanged a gaze. Steve was maybe more surprised to hear the news than Bucky was for the simple reasons that 1) Bucky was expecting a last dirty move from Dimitri and/or Simm (turned out the two had joined forces to better screw him) and 2) Bucky was and would ever be 100% done with people’s honesty. Steve could keep believing that goodness lay in everyone (only deeply buried sometimes), Bucky didn’t trust anyone anymore - except for his best friend. But Steve had a heart of gold so dense it was surprising he hadn’t become a worm hole yet (though, considering how _everyone_  felt drawn to him, that was probably the case.)

“Alright” the blond finally said. “Thanks for telling us, JARVIS. Tell Tony we’re on our way. Bucky, let’s- What are you doing?”

As he was himself heading for his bedroom where his gear was neatly waiting for him, resting against the door, he noticed the brunet going on the total opposite direction - the kitchen island to be more precise. Bucky, his head already shoved into the fridge, mildly shrugged.

“Taking Nat’s beers. I think I fucking deserve it at this point.”

He wouldn’t yet remove his head but he could __sense__  Rogers giving him his Captain America’s disapproval eyebrow (registered trademark).

“Buck, seriously?”

The brunet finally shut the fridge and he opened the beer easily with not even the need of his metal arm.

“I said I deserve it.”

He sighed.

“Let’s just meet downstairs, OK?”

Steve stared at him from a few more seconds but eventually - as time was obviously running out - he rushed to his bedroom’s door, grabbed his leather brown jacket and his shield and just like that, he was out of their apartment. A few seconds later - as JARVIS had anticipated his move - the elevator’s door rang and Steve was on his way.

As for Bucky, he was taking his damn time. He drank the whole beer in one go and threw the bottle in the bin without a second look. While heading for his own bedroom, he grabbed his belt that he had abandoned on the couch without further thoughts when they had come back - and he checked his knifes, miniaturized bombs and other lethal yet small stuff stored inside it as he kicked his door open. Not looking at the mess on the floor - and the otherwise nude walls - he opened his closet and grabbed his suit - the Winter Soldier’s. He didn’t even blink once when he put on the jacket. Everything felt so _right_  about it - every one of his knives, his guns, his other weapons, he knew exactly where they were and that felt good. The Soldier was giving him the familiar sensation of a efficient weaponry, the promise that the mission would go smoothly. But something made him frown.

“JARVIS? Status report on Pietroushka, please.”

“Of course, Sergeant. The Winter Soldier Pietrov is still in his cell. He was asked to get out of it by Dimitri but he refused arguing that he was loyal only to you.”

Bucky tilted his head, grinning.

“Good boy.” Then, louder so that the AI could hear him distinctly: “Tell him to stay where he is. And that I’ll be back soon.”

“Yes Sergeant. However, I am taking the liberty to transmit to him the record of your last message.”

As the brunet attached his mask on his belt - while a gas attack was never something to be disregarded lightly he still didn’t feel confident enough with the idea of putting it on - the answer from Pietroushka came through the intercoms.

“Good luck Isha. Take care of those bastards.”

Bucky smiled.

“It’s time they know exactly what kind of weapon they have created.”

He darted out of his bedroom and out of the flat, right onto the balcony. Looking down, he spotted a vague dark silhouette and heard the sound of the motorcycle. He deemed the elevator too slow: he jumped.

Falling freely from more or less ones of the top floors of the Avengers Tower, he took out his small grappling hook and shoot it at their balcony. He slowed down his fall thanks to that rope but ended up landing more brutally that he expected. Ouch the knee. He winced as Steve jumped with surprise, fright and lastly, anger.

“What the-!”

“Drive, Rogers” he cut him off, settling himself on the back of Steve’s motorcycle, being in no mood for a lecture.

Captain America gave him a last astounded glance before he sat down and turned on the engine. They quickly drove away from the Tower, amongst the shining lights of the city and the colorful headlights of the other cars.

“Did JARVIS gave you the coordinates?” the ex-assassin asked.

Steve nodded but he replied out loud, to make sure Bucky would get it:

“He did. Apparently, Simm and Dimitri are going to try catching the train to Toronto. We need to stop them before they leave the country.”

But it was late and traffic was a bitch.

“Seriously, Steve, do something! We’re gonna lose them!” shouted Bucky as they got stuck in a traffic jam.

“There’s nothing I can do!” replied the blond, as tensed as his friend was, his hands clamped on the handlebars of his vehicle. “And I don’t know the city well enough to find another path.”

“Me neither” huffed Bucky.

He was roaming around in his brain, looking for any intel he could have on New York, from his past missions as the Winter Soldier. But all he could - painfully - remember was stealth kills with him hooked on the top of a building. No car chase ever. No wandering around. What about trying from the roofs? But the roofs were all skycrapers’ - which wouldn’t make it easier, even for two Super Soldiers.

They were really doomed to wait.

He bumped in head in Steve’s back and hit the shield.

“Goddammit.”

“Don’t worry Buck” his friend said, “we’ll get them.”

What the Winter Soldier would do, though? Well, to begin with, he would most certainly keep thinking while remaining calm too and not start to get frustrated. Was frustration the reason he was so bad when he wasn’t brainwashed?

Hopefully, the traffic became smoother and they could drive again.

When they arrived near the train station, Steve, on Bucky’s advice (the man knew that it was way too late), didn’t get the motorcycle inside the parking lot but rather found the railroad and started following it. They got there just as the train was leaving.

“Hold still” Bucky told him.

He rose from his seat and put his right foot on the saddle and his left foot on Steve’s shoulder, ensuring his balance while taking out his rifle. But as soon as he was ready to open fire, he heard the blond’s voice.

“Wait! No, don’t!”

He froze but didn’t lower his arms.

“There are civilians in there Buck! You risk hurting them!”

True.

But still: the train was gaining speed and in no much more time, they would be outrun by it.

Steve accelerated though and took the vehicle right beside the train. Bucky had a sudden flash of memory. But now the trains looked completely different from what they used to, back in the days...

“You ready to jump?” shouted Steve.

He shook off the memory. They were currently side by side with the train. He didn’t hesitate. Using Steve’s shoulder as a bearing point, he pounced and landed on the roof. His left hand clamped on the metal, warping it but also grounding him.

“Grab my hand!” He shouted, holding out his free hand.

Steve briefly glanced at him to prepare his jump. Then he suddenly let go of the wheel, pulled up his two feet on the saddle and jumped. Bucky caught his wrist and drew the blond to his side. They glanced back at the motorcycle that had fallen on the ground, near the railroad, its engine still rolling.

Then, without wasting a minute, Bucky went over Steve, near the edge of the train and leaned on his stomach.

“Hold me” he told Captain America.

The blond took his legs in one arm, using the other to ground himself - the train had almost reached his maximum speed and it was getting more and more tricky to stand on its roof.

Meanwhile, Bucky casually grabbed the handle of the door with his left hand and pulled, ripping the whole door off. He opened his fingers and the metallic door got lost on the railroad’s side so fast even their super soldiers’ eyes barely saw it.

The ex-assassin slid into the train and Steve followed him closely.

They were inside the last car but one. Back in the days, that would have been the freight car, Bucky mused.

“So I guess we only have to find Simm and Dimitri now!” shouted Steve as the door being now missing, all the wind was rushing inside the cabin and making a hell of a noise.

The brunet couldn’t reply: Simm himself appeared in front of them, coming from the next car with the others passengers.

“Good evening gentlemen” he said in his very polite, very cold voice.

Bucky tensed up immediately. He also immediately started to scan his surroundings, searching for Dimitri. And he also - finally - noticed that Steve was in his civilian clothes. No helmet, no bullet-proof suit. Well done, Steve. A too-tight shirt and a frickin pajama bottoms: that exactly what you needed to go after some Hydra’s goons. While his mind went crazy over how reckless Rogers was, his Winter Soldier’s instinct had him to move so that he would get between Mister I-Don’t-Need-A-Suit and Simm. A move that didn’t get unnoticed by the guy. He smiled viciously.

“I assume I don’t need to ask you how you recovered your memory” Steve blurted out in his pure righteous voice.

Simm’s grin was humorless.

“Indeed, no need to waste time on this. Besides, memory’s can be so... subtle sometimes.”

His steel blue eyes went to stare down at Bucky’s and he began to speak again - except in Russian.

“Isha, listen to my voice” - he said indeed using his smoothest voice.

And Bucky’s blood rushed through his veins.

He knew what was coming. He turned and kicked Rogers to throw him away - _and why couldn’t you wear your suit Rogers!_  - and get out his gun. But what for? The words was like a chant. A deadly one. He hated it as much as he wanted to hear it. His brain was burning and he was falling on a loop to the end of which he knew the Soldier was waiting for him. Ready to get back on duty. More importantly, ready to do what was right for both of them - so they could by rewarded for they compliance and end their miserable life.

It burned because giving up was too easy.

“Soldat?” asked his handler.

Besides him, there were two more people in that car situated on a moving train. The two people were staring at him, in expectation, and he could feel their anxiety of them both. The brunet blinked a few times. His mind was settling down - but it was still blurry. He uttered the words mechanically.

“Ready to comply.”

His handler smiled - or rather, the corners of his mouths rose up, revealing his absurdly perfect teeth.

“Good. Now, kill Captain America.”

He turned to face the other man - Captain America. This man was the most upset of the two. He had his shield risen before him but his eyes - his eyes were crying from pain.

“Bucky, no... Bucky, please, it’s me, it’s Steve. Bucky, please, remember...”

His voice was hoarse and truth be told, even shaking - like his whole body.

What a pitiful opponent.

The brunet focused on the blue, red and white shield. He knew everything he had to know about it. In fact, he knew everything he needed to know about the man standing before him. How he fought, how he reacted, how he felt...

Having his mind finally settled, he raised his gun in a swift movement and shoot.

As expected, Steve shielded himself behind, well, his shield and so the bullet hit the vibranium Frisbee instead of the man. But Bucky’s calculations were perfect; as Steve unconsciously raised his shield so to fully protect his head, the bullet hit it at the just the perfect angle, bounced back, whistled past Bucky’s ear and ended up in Simm’s shoulder.

The shriek of sheer pain coming from the Hydra officer definitively shook him off his foggy thoughts. Steve rushed to him and grabbed him by his shoulders.

“Are you okay?” he asked with only concern all over his face.

The former Winter Soldier smirked.

“Of course, pal. I’ll always have your back, remember?”

As for Simm, he stopped shouting and settled on the floor where he bled out abundantly, holding his shoulder with his unarmed hand.

“How... How is that even possible?” he stuttered, breathing loudly.

Bucky could see in Steve’s eyes that his friend was wondering about the exact same thing. His smile broadened and he knelt before the man that had tried to take control over him.

“Self reprogramming” he answered. “You see, you have found one of my former student to fight against me. But I have found another one on my own and he had told me how to beat the programming.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“Memories are what you make them.”

Ten words. You would think that they had a meaning - they didn’t. It was ten random words and figures to decrease the probability of them being said at an unwanted time. However, to the brainwashed soldier, these ten words did have a meaning. Since everyone had mental images for each concept, each idea, each word they knew of, when being brainwashed, these ten random words would cling themselves to past memories or memorized feelings and thus gain meaning. A meaning that would basically be: obey or you will suffer. Hearing these ten words was similar to going through the process again, watching one’s own memory being wiped out, corrupted at their core. But what Pietroushka had learned, what allowed him to keep remembering the man he loved, was that the trigger words could be made ineffective if one could sever the link between them and the meaning one’s brain had granted them. So that’s what Bucky did.

_Longing._

During seventy years, Bucky, even though he didn’t know it, was longing for Steve, for him to come and get him out, to take him back to their home, back to Brooklyn. But after what happened in D.C., after he began to live alongside the Avengers, that feeling of longing couldn’t exist anymore. And when the Winter Soldier got back on the field, he didn’t long with regret at a lost home; he longed forwards, with hope, to his current home.

_Rusted._

During all his time as the Winter Soldier, Bucky’s main concern was his efficiency. He was out of time, always. Being frozen between two missions, sleeping years, sometimes decades away from the world, it was only logical that he would be out of it. Which meant he had to fight. To prove his efficiency, every single time. Being rusted meant upcoming punishments, bad treatments. But now? Now Bucky wasn’t the Winter Soldier anymore. He had reclaimed his mind, his body, his will to stop fighting. Being rusted meant he was useless on the battlefield - and that he could stay home instead, if he wanted to.

_Seventeen._

On his seventeenth’s birthday, Steve talked about the upcoming war and Bucky got scarred while knowing that he’d have to learn how to fight in order to protect Steve, unaware of what the war had in store for him. For seventy years, he stayed bitter about that birthday as if it had been meant to be a bad omen of his sad destiny. But then he had discovered something else, something sweet, something that took seven decades for him to figure out: his seventeenth’s birthday was also the day he realized how he felt about Steve.

_Daybreak._

He used to watch the sun rising on so many cities and so often after a successful mission - after he killed someone. Now he would watch it rising on one city - his city - and after a good night of sleep, near the people he loved and cared about.

_Furnace._

Fire was not something foreign to the Winter Soldier. His mind burned during the programming. His arm burned when it was reattached to his body or blasted off during a fight. His own flesh burned when he was on the chair. But on that particular mission with Pietroushka, he discovered a frozen furnace and the two of them curled against each other to keep themselves warm, he figured another furnace, one that only touched the heart and that wasn’t painful.

_Nine._

Eight times, he had broken free of the programming. Eight times, they had managed to get their hands on him and wiped him again. But on the ninth time, he had promised himself that he would not let that happen ever again.

_Benign._

His body. Not their toy to play with. Not a tool, not a weapon either. His. And his body was precious, he cared about it. A head wound wasn’t a benign scratch, something he had to forget about to carry on the mission. Bucky was hurt and he wanted the word to know it.

_Homecoming._

Because home wasn’t Brooklyn anymore. Home was Steve - and everyone else he cared about.

_One._

Because there was one thing he wanted to tell Steve, more than anything else in the world.

_Freight car._

Where they were standing right now. Where a new memory, a new feeling, was being created.

“Memories” he said. “Maybe they can define who we are. Or who we want to be.”

Bucky got back on his feet and glanced at Steve. The blond wasn’t sure he had understood it all but he knew one thing for sure: no one was ever going to take his Bucky away again.

“At least, I guess you ain’t that bad with a gun” he said.

Which was dumb as hell.

“For shit’s sake Rogers, one more word...”

But he was smiling.

“Do you think this is over?” growled Simm.

They could only put their eyes back on him before he darted on his feet and tackled Bucky. And Steve could only watch powerless as the two men went through the huge hole on the wall.

“BUCKY!”

Cap rushed to the hole with his heart pounding. He searched the darkness and found his friend holding to the train with only one hand - his metal one - cramped on the cutting edges of the hole and staring at the void with crazy eyes.

“Hold on Buck!” the blond shouted. “I’ve lost you once and that was one time too many!”

He grabbed Bucky by his wrists and pulled as hard as he could - so hard, actually, that they fell backwards and rolled on the floor of the train. Steve immediately rose up and bent over his friend who was currently suffering from a panic attack.

“Calm down, Buck! It’s me! Everything’s OK! Listen to me Buck! Look at me!”

Bucky finally laid his eyes on him and his breathing started to slow down. Steve nodded encouragingly.

“That’s it. Calm down. You did a great job. You made it.”

But as his mind was getting clear again, Bucky shook his head.

“No... There’s still Dimitri. Somewhere.”

Ignoring the huge feeling of vertigo threatening to take him over, he stood up and tried to head for the passengers’ car but Steve grabbed his hand and stopped him. Bucky watched him getting back on his feet before he was drawn into a tight hug and he felt Steve’s breath at the base of his neck and his soft voice directly into his ear.

“You’re not doing this alone. I’m not leaving you. Not now and not ever again.”

Bucky felt tears coming up. Hoping Steve wouldn’t noticed them, he turned his head to look at him in the eyes.

“Am I stuck with you?” he asked with a concern frown.

“Is that a problem?” replied the blond with a cocky smirk.

He felt his whole body relaxing and a overwhelming feeling of happiness taking over everything. The ex-assassin smiled brighter than ever.

“Not at all, Rogers. Not fucking at all.”

And he snuggled up more deeply to both that hug and that loved one for he was out of his Winter once and for all and stepping inside a promising beautiful spring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is it: end of the line. Let's be honest, I'm getting a bit emotional here. It lasted for three months only but like so much happened for me and my writing because of that fic! Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed it all the way long (and now I'm wondering wether my new fic should be about pre-serum Steve and Winter Soldier or Bucky and Clint and if you liked my story please tell me what sounds like the most interesting to you).


	16. Training session

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Winter Soldier decides to take all the Avengers on a fight against him.

The note was on the fridge of the common room for everyone to see. In a really neat albeit rushed writing, Bucky was warning whoever Avengers were currently staying at the Tower that he was willing to take them all on a fight. All of them versus only him.

“Guy’s hasn’t his mind set right yet” stated Clint, slouched in the sofa, watching what looked like a dumb reality TV show.

“Clearly enough, he might be underestimating us” boomed the mighty voice of Thor. “Or maybe he did not know what our number would be?”

Tony, leaned on the kitchen island, only gave a quick look at Steve who was holding the note in his fingers with a slight grin on his face before turning back to his friends.

“Yeah, no. I think we’re the ones that are underestimating him.”

Clint gave him a wry look.

“Come on Tony! I’m not saying, if it was one-on-one, maybe, but all of us at the same time? The Winter Soldier can’t be _that_  good!”

Natasha entered the room at this moment. While she headed for the kitchen island, she still managed to turned the TV off somehow, having Clint make a offended sound. She came near Steve and when looking at him, both of their smile broadened in complicity.

“The Winter Soldier can totally be that good” she told Clint. “Especially since he took care of warning us beforehand. Means that he’s got a plan. Of course, I’ll be with you guys, but I’m not sure we can win.”

Tony growled and turned to Bruce who was sipping his coffee quietly.

“You’re with us right?” he asked him.

Bruce laughed humorless.

“Oh, no, no. I don’t want to... bring out the other guy just for that, you know. I’ll be in my lab” he added with his shy usual voice.

Natasha eyed him with tenderness - which didn’t go unnoticed by Steve. Cap finally opened his mouth to call out the last teammate in the room.

“What about you Sam? You’re in?”

Unnaturally, the Falcon had been quiet all along. Probably because he was cleaning up Redwing with a delicate cloth and needed to be extra focused on the task - Sam’s love for Redwing was nearly as obsessional as Coulson’s was with Lola. When Steve called him, however, he lifted his head and sighed very loudly and very obviously.

“Man, I already fought that dude and it didn’t end well-”

“Chicken” said Clint throwing a pillow at him. And: “What?” when he saw Nat’s giving him a disapproving look.

“-but I guess if it’s some kind of team building exercise, I should go too” Sam finished.

Steve nodded.

“Okay” said Clint, “guess I need to go grab my arrows, then.”

He rose from the sofa and headed for the elevator. Natasha followed in his footsteps and Bruce waited for the elevator to return before leaving too - and telling the team that he would be watching the fight from his lab. Thor went to sit near Sam and the two of them started talking about a restaurant in town - Sam had claimed it was the best and Thor needed to know why for... reasons (reasons that may or may not been linked to a certain Dr. Foster).

Steve took another sip of coffee when he felt Tony putting his hand on his arm.

“Just tell me you’re sure” he said with his voice low enough so that the two others wouldn’t hear him “that Barnes won’t snap or something like that during the fight. You told us he was alright. He is, isn’t he?”

Steve frowned but he could understand Tony’s concern - hell, after the helicarriers attack, they didn’t know Bucky wasn’t free of all programming until HYDRA got their hands back on him - so he tried to smile soothingly at him and put his hand on top of Iron Man’s.

“Yes he is, Tony” he answered. “I don’t know why he wants to do this, maybe because it’s a coping mechanism or something you know? But I’m sure he doesn’t mean to hurt any of us and I’m also sure he’s got 100% control of himself.”

Tony released his grip.

“Okay, good.”

He finished his coffee and put the mug in the sink.

“Didn’t want you or him to go crying when we’ll kick his ass.”

Steve simply rose an eyebrow.

 

Thirty minutes later, the team had assembled in the training room. That room was - as everything else on the Stark’s Tower now the Avengers’ - insanely huge. In a way, it was fair enough: they needed to be able to all work out at the same time but each one in their own environment. Or do a training session together in an vast environment created by JARVIS. But today, the room was just a flat mat. No walls, no defensive turrets, nothing to hide behind or shoot from. Just a mat - and Bucky.

Bucky was standing in the middle of the room, fully dressed in his Winter Soldier’s gear - he even had his mask and goggles on.

“I think I’m gonna pee myself” muttered Clint seeing the man who looked as hot as dangerous.

“Don’t pee yourself Barton” said the Black Widow at the same time, knowing about Clint’s disaster gay thoughts.

Thor stepped out of the team, waving joyfully his hammer.

“Ah, friend Barnes! We didn’t have the opportunity to talk much together lately but I’m fairly glad that you-”

“Just start fighting already” the man cut him, Bucky’s voice sounding muffled and even deformed by the mask.

The team froze and glanced at each other awkwardly, not sure how or _if_  they should start shooting. Eventually, Tony started his thrusters.

“If you insist.”

He propelled himself through the air and the room and aimed at the Soldier. Bucky mildly moved to dodge the shot. But as he raised his gun in Tony’s direction, he caught sign of the hammer and swore in Russian as he was forced to leap sideways. From the corner of his eye, he also spotted Clint, moving alongside the walls probably to get behind him.

As he knew what the hammer used to do, he chose to run towards Thor. The God of Thunder wasn’t expecting that and was still reaching out for his weapon to return. Bucky punched him in the belly and immediately spun to find himself back-to-back with Thor. Now he was facing Rogers. No shield-throwing yet because they were too close to each other so Steve decided to hit him directly with it. Bucky crossed his arms and braced for the impact. The sound of it echoed in the whole room but neither of them moved. It was still resonating in their head when Black Widow appeared, jumping over Cap’s shoulder. But Bucky knew she was coming. Thus he welcomed her with the barrel of his gun directly in her belly. He fired and Natasha got sent rolling on the floor and for the second time, everyone froze. However, after a second, they could all hear the redhead groaning.

“You son of a-! Be carefully guys, his guns sting!”

She coughed and made no effort to rise up - well it _really_  stung.

“Yeah and also you should stay focused Rogers!” Bucky added.

Cap’s attention had been distracted by his concern for Nat and before he could lay his eyes on Bucky again, the man had tackled him down and grabbed the shield on the way. Which made him able to stop Clint’s arrow. He threw the shield at Hawkeye and turned to see Thor and Iron Man coming up to him. But before he could start moving, he got grabbed by the straps on the back of his suit. Looking up, he saw Sam taking off with him.

“My turn!” claimed the Falcon.

He was flying right to Tony who readied his hand’s blasters. Bucky seized Sam’s wrists.

“You really are an annoyed piece of shit, Bird-man, you know that?” he growled.

Then he forced on his abs and wrapped his thighs around Sam’s neck - and pulled him down when they met Tony. The Falcon got thrown in Iron Man’s face and Bucky fell freely to the ground.

He landed brutally on both of his feet, one second before an arrow exploded at his left foot. He lost his balance but managed to stay up. He rushed to Clint, on the other side of the room, who began taking shot after shot at a speed so high it was obvious that Hawkeye had been waiting for that moment since actually the beginning of the fight. And everyone could clearly hear muffled Russian cusses as the Winter Soldier could barely keep moving forward, too busy avoiding the explosive arrows. But he was managing to get closer to Clint who eventually panicked.

“Sputnik!” he yelled out of his mind.

“Clint!” Natasha called him with discontent.

The man froze for a second and everybody briefly wondered if the code word had worked. But then Bucky shook his head and sent Clint on the floor with a right kick. He bent backward right afterwards and the hammer went whistling above his head while he took out two guns and fired at Thor who appeared to him as if he was running on the ceiling. The Thunder groaned and put a kneel on the floor, holding his painful belly. Bucky stood up, taking a brief break.

“And this is where the game ends” said suddenly Tony from above, ready to fire.

The man tilted his head.

“Is that so?”

Tony shot and Bucky took cover behind Cap’s shield that he had previously threw at Clint. While keeping himself protected beneath it, he started running towards to the room’s doors where Steve stood, helping Natasha to stay on her foot. When the two friends saw him coming their way, they split up. Bucky didn’t stop running until he nearly bumped into Steve. Their faces were so close they almost touched.

“Pretty eyes” huffed the Soldier (Steve thought that this time his voice sounded like he had a Russian accent - and more high-pitched than usual.)

Then Bucky grabbed him by his wrist and threw him on Iron Man - they both groaned at the impact and Tony swore. Bucky turned just in time to block the Widow’s fist with the shield. He tried to protect himself with it but she quickly wrenched it from him. They began to fight hand-to-hand and although they were both amazing, both trained at this short of fight, it was clear Bucky’s had the upper hand. Finally, he also managed to seize her and sent her in the air. Sam caught her but it was a bit too abruptly and they both hit the floor again.

Bucky looked around, his breathing heavy.

“So. Is that it?”

A long minute of silence - filled with mildly frustrated and hurt groans - followed until a frank, loud laugh shook off the whole room.

“You, my friend” roared Thor, “are one of a warrior!”

“Agree” said Steve, picking up his shield as Thor held out a hand for Clint, “you really impressed me on that one, Buck. How did you-”

He stopped as Natasha came to him and took his shield from him.

“Nat, maybe we could rest...” he started but the redhead didn’t listen to him.

In fact, she didn’t threw the shield at Barnes either. She threw it in the corner of the room, so high above the ground it was filled with darkness.

To everyone’s surprise, the shield didn’t bounce back. They all heard a metallic sound and then something fell from the ceiling. The figure landed in the middle of them, holding Cap’s shield.

“You got me Natalia” said Bucky - the real one - with glee.

He then looked at Steve and made a face.

“But you, Steve, you really disappointed me.”

Steve’s eyes were travelling back and forth between the two Winter Soldiers. He opened his mouth a few times but no sound came out. Eventually, Iron Man lifted his helmet and asked the question they had all in mind.

“Can someone explain to me what’s happening?”

The Avengers turned to the man they had been fighting - and being beaten up by. The Soldier removed his mask and his goggles and took off his wig revealing his blonde hair. Pietrov looked at Natasha.

“How did you know I wasn’t him?” he asked.

Nat giggled and glanced at Barnes.

“Because you fight exactly like him... but from two years ago. I know James’ fighting style better than anyone else and I immediately saw that something was off. You were too brutal in your movements, like you were forcing on yourself.”

“I did train Pietrov to be more subtle” admitted Bucky. “Like... you actually.”

“True. But you neither fight like this anymore.”

They exchanged a tender smile. Bucky wasn’t truly surprised that Nat had uncovered his little deception - after all, she was a better spy than he was. To be honest, he would have been surprised if the contrary had happened.

“Wait, hold on!” said Tony, looking even more confused. “What- What was all that? What did you do that?”

Thought he was asking the question to Bucky, Pietrov answered it with his strong accent - and they realized that the cuss they heard were from him while everything else was Bucky’s talking to them through a microphone hidden in the mask.

“To show how pitiful you are! You work terribly as a team. Like you, Mr. Stark! You always shoot only when you’re sure none of your teammate is around. But that means that you have to go in there first - which is _not_  always a good plan - while you could try coming closer to you opponent.”

He added, with a wicked smile:

“I could almost have won without Isha’s helping me.”

“So you admit you were cheating!” shouted Clint who did not appreciate how easily Pietrov took him down.

The boy frowned.

“Me, cheating? You tried to use a fucking code word on me!”

Natasha nodded.

“He’s right. That was a dick move, Clint.”

The archer shrugged but didn’t answer - clearly, he felt bad about that, even without the others blaming him.

“At least” said Steve to end the discussion, “Bucky was right: we wanted a proof that Pietrov’s mind was safe and now we got it.”

Tony glared at him.

“I don’t care. I’m a bad loser.”

He raised his palm and Pietrov braced from the impact but before he could even shoot, Bucky kicked him and sent him on the floor.

“You heard the boy, Tony. It’s time someone train you for real.”

“I’m not letting a Russian assassin train me!” the billionaire shouted, offended.

Bucky glanced at Pietrov and Nat.

“Actually” he said grinning, “you’re getting your ass trained by three Russian assassins.”

And no one saw Tony’s face depicting such terror than in that instant.

Bucky walked towards Steve and handed him his shield.

“Still disappointed that you didn’t realize it wasn’t me.”

Steve blushed and looked at his feet. Bucky walked past him. He slang his arm around Pietrov’s shoulders and the two of them left the training room.

“Later, losers!” yelled Pietrov as the doors shut behind them.

The team look at each other.

“That was fun” said Thor with a broad smile.

“Tell me about it” mumbled Tony who visibly disagreed with him.

“I think I hate that kid” added Clint.

“Tell me about _that_ ” said Sam massaging his painful shoulder.

Nat and Steve glanced at each other. Steve was still a little red over the edges - he did feel ashamed he hadn’t been able to recognize that his opponent wasn’t his best friend - but the two friends were smiling with pride. This fight had just shown them all that Bucky was back and definitively fitting in the team.

 

***

 

“So, when are you gonna do something about it?” asked Pietrov as they were leading their ways to the kitchen to treat themselves with a well-deserved mega sandwich with extra prickles.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about” Bucky replied.

The blonde rolled his eyes.

“Steve, obviously!”

He put himself in front of his elder, forcing him to stop.

“Come on! How many more _years_  do you intend to wait?”

The ex-assassin pushed him aside and resumed walking. Pietrov caught with him in no time and his big blue eyes felt like a hitching on his neck.

“Listen” Bucky eventually said, “it’s a bit more complicated that it seems-”

“Nu-uh. It’s simple: either you start dating him right now or I kill him so you’ll have no choice but dating me. Cause I’m warning you: I ain’t gonna let you keep your ass alone for much more time.”

The Winter Soldier blushed.

“Okay, I’ll figure something” he promised.


End file.
